All Questions
625
questions
1
vote
1
answer
128
views
New interface - empty rectangles in the reputation column
I've got new interface and I like it, but there is something strange:
Some numbers are supposed to be there, right? They are present on other StackExchange sites with this interface
- 17.2k
1
vote
0
answers
475
views
Reference Requests: Good Ways and Bad Ways
I would like to know of types of bad examples of MathOverflow questions that are tantamount to reference requests. I can think of two:
a) A reference request for something that is properly outside ...
- 3,199
1
vote
0
answers
333
views
How to merge old mathoverflow account?
I know that this question has been asked and answered here: How can I log in into my old mathoverflow account? I have e-mailed the stackoverflow admins twice, but nothing has happened for 48h now. ...
- 1,961
-2
votes
1
answer
162
views
Restriction on editing closed questions
Guidelines to prove that $2^{\sqrt{2}}$ is a transcendental number? question bumped into https://mathoverflow.net/ after making an edit.
I am not sure if that adds anything to the question.
Should ...
- 5,875
-3
votes
1
answer
432
views
Should we create an Erdős tag?
I was thinking about creating tags for some famous or important people, like Erdős (that already exists, as pointed out by Joonas: erdos), that could be used for questions related to their work.
...
- 18.6k
-4
votes
2
answers
370
views
Area 51 Mathematics Open Community Reviews
Following the discussions in
Area 51 community peer review
and links therein, I have created the following proposal
Mathematics Open Community Reviews
hoping to get things started. The proposal ...
-5
votes
1
answer
645
views
Restriction on Number of edits
Book about fluid dynamics asked Apr 13 '10 edited 1 hour ago
Are there examples of conjectures supported by heuristic arguments that have been finally disproved? asked 21 hours ago edited 2 hours ...
- 5,875
83
votes
3
answers
4k
views
MathOverflow user jailed
I know this is off-topic, not even being a question.
MathOverflow user Kıvanç Ersoy has been jailed, apparently for signing a petition.
Edit: As mentioned in comments, there is a petition about ...
- 32.9k
77
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Why all the negativity?
I've been on this site for several years and I appreciate the site a lot but I don't like to post here anymore because no matter what I write I get some kind of sarcastic comment, or put-down, or ...
user10290
68
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Happy 5th anniversary, MathOverflow!
MathOverflow first came online on September 28, 2009!
Let's celebrate five years of MO!
I bought a delicious cake from the best bakery in the area to have with dinner tonight. I'm sure you will also ...
- 43.5k
55
votes
2
answers
3k
views
ChatGPT strikes MathOverflow
The user (or a bot) https://mathoverflow.net/users/496085/canvas123 appears to be posting ChatGPT-generated text on MathOverflow.
Two “answers” by this user already got accepted (!):
When is a ...
- 35.5k
54
votes
8
answers
3k
views
We have our first user with more than 200K reputation!
Congratulations to Joel David Hamkins who on (I think!) the 27th November 2022, was the first MathOverflow user to pass 200k reputation! Since Joel joined on the 19th November 2009, he has supplied ...
51
votes
48
answers
28k
views
News of potential interest to the MO community
Occasionally, there has been a suggestion to start a meta question to collect information that might be of interest to the MO community. This is an attempt to start such a thread.
Is there any news ...
48
votes
4
answers
3k
views
On discussion of published papers at MO
There is an interesting discussion taking place at MO over the suitability of this question: Complex structure on $S^6$ gets published in Journ. Math. Phys. The question is about the correctness of a ...
Todd TrimbleMod
- 51.9k
47
votes
0
answers
932
views
Moderation strike update 1
As announced a little while back, MathOverflow moderators are participating in a network-wide moderation strike (currently at 121 moderators striking; see the background post for more details). The ...
- 33.2k
46
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Should graduate students be encouraged to participate in MO? If so, at what stage?
When I started graduate school ten (!) years ago, a more senior Ph.D student at the time told me about MathOverflow and encouraged me to participate. Ever since then I have found it immensely useful. ...
- 24.9k
46
votes
0
answers
1k
views
2022 Election results: Congratulations to our new moderator!
The election is over, the votes have been counted, and on behalf of the current team and board, I'd like to welcome David Roberts to the moderators team!
I'd like to thank Carl-Fredrik Nyberg-Brodda ...
- 37.7k
44
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Restoring Bill Thurston's figures in an answer
The question Floating polyhedra with fair equilibria was answered by
Bill Thurston, but his (typically amazing) answer contains links to 7 figures,
all now broken. I don't know how to retrieve those ...
- 149k
44
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How to cite comment by unknown user disproving Erdős conjecture?
I believe that fedja has disproved a conjecture of Erdős et al. when commenting on my question Almost monochromatic point sets, but I'm unable to contact fedja regarding this. What shall I do? Shall I ...
- 18.6k
43
votes
0
answers
1k
views
An interactive graph of MathOverflow tags
I created a graph of tags from Stack Exchange sites (including MathOverflow), TagOverflow.
It is a continuation on my previous project - plots with static graphs and (sadly) without MO (due to API ...
- 1,592
41
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Catering to professional appearance a bit much?
[In case of hurry, please scroll down to the suggestions at the very end.]
The deletion of the Math Jokes thread (mirrors: html or pdf), most likely provoked by the meta.MO debate about some specific ...
- 32.7k
39
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Deleting others' work
Recently a question was posted on MathOverflow, which received (I think) more than an average number of upvotes. There was an answer to the question, by someone other than the OP. Next day, the ...
- 110k
37
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Grothendieck's passing
I think it would be a healing ritual
for the MO community for someone of appropriate stature (which excludes me)
posting an inviting cwiki question that elicits responses from the users
to this ...
- 149k
37
votes
3
answers
730
views
Discreet editing
After I edited someone's Question or Answer, it feels real awkward to see my name mentioned in front of the author of the respective Q. or A. I feel that instead of displaying editor's name there ...
- 7,424
36
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How is it off-topic to ask whether the normalization of a local complete intersection is Gorenstein?
This question (which I did not ask) is whether the normalization of a local complete intersection domain is Gorenstein. Why was this closed as "off-topic"? Especially when this one, which asks ...
- 28.4k
34
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Answers in comments are increasingly more common
I have checked a random sample of questions in the main page, and it seems that almost every one of them has some form of answer in the comments, apart from completely unanswered/untouched ones.
This ...
- 19k
33
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Easy research-related questions, and closure reasons again
I am a bit confused by the close reason for https://mathoverflow.net/questions/154235/minimum-l1-norm-may-not-obtain-the-sparsest-solution?noredirect=1#comment395410_154235.
It is an easy question ...
- 19k
33
votes
0
answers
631
views
Moderation strike update 4
This update is to point to two posts by the company on the platform-wide meta site, Meta Stack Exchange.
The post (Historical) Policy on the use of GPT Generators is a copy of the private policy on ...
- 33.2k
33
votes
0
answers
580
views
Moderation strike update 5 : the results of negotiations
The negotiations over the strike have ended with agreement addressing all the issues raised by the striking moderators. The post on meta.StackExchange was vetted and agreed to by both sets of ...
- 33.2k
32
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Can I see who voted for what after I die?
I would like to know who has up- and (most importantly!) downvoted my questions. Will I find out after I die? What do different religions/beliefs say about this? I would happily convert to see the ...
- 18.6k
32
votes
4
answers
2k
views
How does one cite a MO post with an anonymous author?
I asked the question "Averaging $2^{\omega(n)}$ over a region" because this is a necessary step in a research paper I am writing. The answer is detailed and does exactly what I need, and it would be ...
- 24.9k
31
votes
0
answers
978
views
2013 Election Results
The election process is over, and now it is time to declare the winners:
Good luck in the new position, I'm sure that you'll prove to be a great addition to the community and its moderators!
On ...
- 37.7k
30
votes
1
answer
419
views
Text on some buttons has become unrecognizable
Very recently (I think today) the buttons with "Post your answer", "Answer your question" and some others became black, with the text hardly readable.
With me it happens on Windows 10 with latest ...
- 17.2k
29
votes
0
answers
506
views
Moderation strike update 3
There was a lull in the negotiations, for various innocuous reasons that are not relevant. But on 20th July 2023, the following update was posted to Discord by negotiator Mithical, and reposted at the ...
- 33.2k
28
votes
3
answers
720
views
When asking a question on MO it seems there's far too little information on what MO is about
When we switched from the old format to the MSE 2.0 format, almost all the information about what MO is about, and what is expected from a good question was been stripped from the site. I mean, one ...
- 42.3k
28
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Do your own homework
Occasionally, we get questions on main taken from old contests, such as Olympiads and Putnam exams. These questions are inappropriate for MO, and they get closed, which is as it should be. However, ...
- 38.4k
28
votes
12
answers
1k
views
Site updates are live
A majority of the changes are not be visible; these tweaks go along with recent updates that were made to Stack Overflow:
We have updated the site's CSS to a newly refactored LESS system, so that it'...
- 101
28
votes
5
answers
1k
views
Drastic locking of the question "Examples of common false beliefs in mathematics"
The question Examples of common false beliefs in mathematics, was one of the best and most successful questions in the history of MO. When we discussed closing it, it was argued that after 164 answers ...
- 24.1k
27
votes
2
answers
657
views
Would newly elected moderators join the board of MathOverflow Inc.?
MathOverflow is a bit different from most of the sites in the network in that it is not operated only by Stack Exchange, but it "belongs" also to the nonprofit MathOverflow corporation.
If I ...
- 4,588
27
votes
2
answers
1k
views
MO policy regarding pseudonyms that are other people's real name
I have noticed just now that a user has chosen as pseudonym "Alexander Grothendieck", which I'm a bit unconfortable with (the probability that it is also that user's name is extremely low, hence my ...
- 2,851
26
votes
4
answers
816
views
Which Latex / MathJax features do we need or want to have supported on the site?
As we've started discussing, Stack Exchange is planning to redo the editor for all questions and answers across all their sites. As articulated by Emilio Pisanty, these changes will have significant ...
Tim CampionMod
- 58.7k
25
votes
2
answers
979
views
Request from PRIMES to keep an eye out for their problems
On m.SE last year there was a problem with someone cheating on the entrance problem set for the PRIMES high school research program at MIT. Selection for PRIMES for this year has begun, and they're ...
- 27.6k
25
votes
1
answer
824
views
"Is this a known/interesting result?"-type questions
Are questions of the form "Is this a known result?" and "Is this an interesting result?" legitimate for MO?
I have sometimes found myself staring at results that were new to me and unsure whether ...
- 525
25
votes
1
answer
3k
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Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
I've heard today that Jean-Christophe Yoccoz passed two days ago:
Le mathématicien français Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, médaille Fields, est mort [archived], Libération, 05.09.2016.
I think people would ...
- 8,043
25
votes
1
answer
828
views
Why is the update so awesome?
I mean, we really don't deserve it. It's awesome. Good work everyone, high-fives all around. Cheers (for those of you from across the pond, so-to-speak).
25
votes
2
answers
1k
views
My question has already been asked, but not really answered? What should I do?
I have a question I am curious about: call it $Q$.
There exists a posted question $P$ on MO which asks my question $Q$. More precisely, $P$ states a series of (slightly vague) questions, one of ...
- 26.5k
24
votes
2
answers
890
views
Statistics showing that more reputation for questions leads to better questions
One of the more controversial aspects of the transition to MO2.0, for myself at least, was the reduction in the reputation added for upvotes on questions asked from +10 to +5, while retaining the ...
- 21.8k
24
votes
4
answers
2k
views
How to handle crankery on MathOverflow 2.0?
On the previous MO we had a thread on Tea called "crank post to flag as spam" in which crank posts were pointed out so people could flag them as spam and have them deleted.
Seeing how we are now ...
- 37.7k
23
votes
2
answers
848
views
Crazy idea about soft questions
I was thinking the other day about big list and other soft questions and had the following crazy idea.
It seems to me that what we want is to occasionally have good soft questions. The main thing ...
- 27.6k
23
votes
0
answers
752
views
Should "The probability for a streak when tossing a coin" be reopened?
The question "The probability for a streak when tossing a coin" is on hold. [Edit: It has been reopened.] I disagree with closing the question and voted to reopen.
This problem may sound like it is ...
- 27.8k