# MathOverflow vs other measures of mathematicians' interests

How closely does MathOverflow track the interests of mathematicians as measured in other ways?

For instance, the Tags page here suggests that $$\frac{\text{interest}_{tags}\text{(algebraic geometry and number theory)}}{\text{interest}_{tags}\text{(algebraic topology and differential geometry)}}> 2$$

Would other measures, counting numbers of people or papers or talks, give similar results?

My guess is that MathOverflow gets a higher number for the above ratio than other metrics, since its format is more suited to things like 47867742232066880047611079 than to geometric diagrams.

• While I agree that algebraic geometry and number theory are over-represented on MO relative to mathematics as a whole, I think your tag count here is misleading. Algebraic geometry and number theory are enormously broad areas; however, for cultural reasons people still usually tag most questions about them as algebraic geometry and number theory. Algebraic topology and differential geometry, however, are more specialized and precise. For instance, I suspect that lots of questions about hyperbolic geometry or the topology of manifolds are tagged using different tags. Jan 9 '14 at 21:10
• If only... it seems that getting a job in logic and set theory would be much easier if MO tag sizes were an accurate depiction of reality.
– Asaf Karagila Mod
Jan 10 '14 at 8:13
• There are almost exactly twice as many questions tagged in logic than in analysis-of-pdes. Jan 10 '14 at 12:33

• These four number $45, 39, 15, 44$ (or rather either of them divided by their sum) give much more info than the ratio you computed. So what is the point of doing so (not only for your comment, but also for the above question)? Jan 11 '14 at 20:07