Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 17 June 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5729, p. 1721
DOI: 10.1126/science.308.5729.1721e
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

NetWatch

If your favorite Web site suddenly shut down, you could grumble about life's unfairness, or you could decide to build a replacement. Nathan Egge and Aaron Krowne, math and computer science students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, chose the second course when a math reference they often consulted went offline. Five years later their handiwork, PlanetMath, holds nearly 4400 entries on topics from the ABC conjecture to Zsigmondy's theorem.

PlanetMath's encyclopedia section resembles Wikipedia, with site users writing and reviewing the content. Krowne, now a computer scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, estimates that math grad students contribute the largest share of the articles, with college professors, undergrads, and other visitors supplying the rest. Anyone can critique an article, but the author decides whether to revise it. PlanetMath also links to 70 free math texts, more than 30 tutorials and lectures, and a collection of published and unpublished papers.

planetmath.org




ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)