Network Mathematics: small approaches to a big problem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason for this blog post is to find easily a presentation of mine that has not been recorded. 

 I have discussed this subject at least three times already: once in the Topos Institute internal seminar, once with a physicist friend interested in information theory and mathematics (Simone Severini), and once in a talk for the Brazilian UD (Universal Dependencies) group. This last occasion has produced the slide deck at "Networked Mathematics: NLP tools for Better Math", May 2023. 

Now Networked Mathematics is a big problem. I have talked about it in several blog posts in the Topos blog, namely:

1.  Introducing the MathFoldr Project 

2. The many facets of Networked Mathematics

3. Mathematical concepts: how do you recognize them? 

4. Preparing for Networked Mathematics 

One of our partial approaches for solving the problem is the idea of recognizing and extracting mathematical concepts from mathematical text. That means using NLP technologies for the specific domain of Mathematics. 

But I have been working on other, related solutions to the problem, discussed in the presentation above. I hope to write more about these other solutions soon. 

For the time being I leave you with an interesting, old blog post about another problem that has not been solved, so far: Connecting The Dots: Lessons in Rebellion From the Math Network

Now, because this reminded me of the Math Genealogy, I cannot resist posting this other picture. Of course there are several ways to connect a mathematician to Paul Erdős and some are nicer than others. For many years the AMS tool gave me as my shortest connection to Erdős the one via Vaughan Pratt and Frances Yao. Now it is given me the one below, which I think it is even nicer.