All Questions
1,850
questions
3
votes
0
answers
213
views
What happened to my MathOverflow account?
I posted this question from my account two days ago. Now suddenly, I saw I don't have an account any longer. I tried to log in and Overflow created a new account. Can someone please shed some light on ...
0
votes
0
answers
118
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Should the dots used in lambda-calculus notation be typographically treated the way binary relation and binary operation symbols are?
Within this question we find the notation $\lambda f . \lambda g . \lambda x.f(g\ x)$, and that causes me to wonder about a point of LaTeX and MathJax usage.
The code ...
0
votes
0
answers
206
views
May I Offer Money to People Who Answer My Question on MathOverflow?
Erdos and others have offered prize money to people who answered their questions.
May I offer money to people who answer my questions on MathOverFlow?
6
votes
1
answer
107
views
Account merging
I have an issue with account merging form in the help center. The 'Your other profile link' does not accept any link to the second my account.
Picture 1: Completed help form
Picture 2: Outcome of ...
23
votes
1
answer
557
views
Drive-By Deletion of Answer to Own Question by Moderator
I'm a bit confused by some moderator action. I posted a question asking for a direct proof of a certain fact. A superb answer was provided by Jochen Glueck. (Thanks again!)
I came across another proof ...
12
votes
1
answer
285
views
How to recommend that a question is better suited for another SE site that isn't listed in the close reasons?
Today I found MO questions where commenters recommended that Proof Assistants or History of Science and Mathematics would be preferable to MO. Other better placements I remember include Mathematica, ...
1
vote
0
answers
116
views
There is no any answer box for this post
I would like to add an answer to this question but there is no any answer box for this question.
What is the reason?
Nonequivalent definitions in Mathematics
-8
votes
1
answer
227
views
Is asking to verify my P=NP proof appropriate?
Is providing link to my (8 pages) proof of P=NP and asking to check my proof appropriate for a MathOverflow question?
The proof is on professional mathematician level (uses advanced logics) and does ...
0
votes
0
answers
117
views
Is deleting posts a good practice?
In principle, MO posts can be cited in papers; on the other hand, MO posts get deleted sometimes. There is a risk, then, of referring a MO post which no longer exists. Is deleting posts a good ...
6
votes
0
answers
389
views
FirefoxCP Isolated Web Content CPU overdrive
Just recently, MathOverflow has started to cause Firefox to use massive CPU resources, at least on my machine. In particular, I'm on a Macbook Pro 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 running Ventura 13.4.1 ...
37
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Moderation strike update 6 and last : back to work
As you probably were aware, since early June moderators around the whole SE network have been striking, including at MathOverflow. We appreciate your patience through this time, and there has been a ...
33
votes
0
answers
588
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 ...
4
votes
1
answer
311
views
Posting a technical/narrow open question on mathoverflow?
I am a bit confused on our policy for open-problems. Are we allowed to post a technical/narrow conjecture/open problem on MO?
For example, here is a type of a beautiful question that I have in mind ...
0
votes
1
answer
120
views
Are questions about mathematical writing acceptable on the main site?
I have a question concerning mathematical writing, a draft of which is posted below if you are interested. The question I wish to ask on Meta however is about whether questions concerning mathematical ...
1
vote
0
answers
44
views
Transferring a misplaced question after it has a positively received answer
I recently goof'd and forgot that hsm.stackexchange exists, and posted a history of mathematics question here.
This was kindly pointed out to me by a user here, but the question already had a ...
2
votes
2
answers
188
views
Writing personal notes on specific questions
It would be nice to be able to add non-public notes for oneself on interesting questions on MO (of which there are very many), for later remembrance and further thinking on it. These notes can remain ...
13
votes
2
answers
386
views
The tag (elementary-number-theory) - yes or no?
The tag elementary-number-theory was created and removed a few times in the past. And recently it was created again - it is still listed among the new tags.
Should there be a separate tag for ...
-4
votes
1
answer
400
views
Should Mathoverflow take a stand against AI?
I am a mathematician with a PhD from 2016 and a long-term user of this website, though I've not been active of late.
I am wondering, should Mathoverflow take a stand against Stackexchange for their ...
33
votes
0
answers
636
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 ...
2
votes
1
answer
133
views
Why would an equation render on preview and in an external TeX compiler, but not in post?
I know the general phenomenon is that rendering of previews differs from rendering of posts, but, presumably, the goal is to minimise unnecessary discrepancies—and that, in particular, non-esoteric ...
17
votes
0
answers
943
views
"In the past one and half years, Stack Overflow has lost 50% of its traffic."
In a tweet by Mahesh Sathiamoorthy, I saw a chart showing a substantial recent drop:
Two questions: (1) Is this accurate? (2) What does the analogous chart for MathOverflow show?
(I can't remember ...
29
votes
0
answers
515
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 ...
3
votes
1
answer
131
views
Why does a table work on preview but not on post?
In waterstreamer's recent post, they used a table to present the possible Jordan normal forms of a $3\times3$ matrix. As they comment, and I checked, the table looks just fine on preview, but ...
2
votes
0
answers
62
views
How do backticks, escaped backticks, and math mode interact, in posts and comments?
I know I can escape backticks, like `.
I though I could escape backticks within backticks, as I did in a comment, but it's not working here: a\b`. See a comment ...
8
votes
0
answers
378
views
Will the closure of Gfycat affect MO?
Gfycat is a hosting service for (animated) GIF files, which will close on September 1st, 2023. Since some MO users might have included GIF files hosted on Gfycat in their posts, does the service's ...
5
votes
2
answers
188
views
Why do `* *`s and `** **`s stop being recognised at some point, and how can I fix the resulting inadvertent vandalism?
I recently submitted an edit to Another notion of exactness: how to refine it, and where does it fit? to replace hand-rolled commutative diagrams with AMScds, since ...
40
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Moderation strike update 2
There has been movement at the station. Reposting an update on how the negotiations are going from this answer on meta.StackExchange, which also gives details on other updates over the past fortnight.
...
3
votes
1
answer
222
views
Writing a bar on top of a number
I want to write a question in which I have a bar on top of a number or letter to represent a recurring digit. however, I can't find any options to write the particular digit, even when I search the ...
2
votes
1
answer
104
views
Custom filter is stuck on
I had a custom filter for questions in tag co.combinatorics with no answer. It seems to be "stuck" in the sense that if I go to the "generic" page for that tag, https://...
2
votes
1
answer
349
views
How can I improve my posts to attract responses?
This is a follow up to this post:
I haven’t received a response from either this or this post, since, according to @Asaf Karigila:
"The longer, more detailed, more effort that is required to ...
48
votes
0
answers
943
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 ...
2
votes
1
answer
297
views
Why suspend a user for 100 years instead of deleting his/her account?
I have just discovered that users can be suspended for 100 years. This raises the question: why suspend for such a long duration (which practically means banning), instead of simply banning (i.e. ...
1
vote
0
answers
93
views
Making my post easier to read
I tried to make this post easier to read but find it extremely difficult to get through grammatical-wise.
I'm wondering if there is someone who can correct the grammar of this post or rewrite the ...
28
votes
4
answers
1k
views
What would be the disadvantages of a (hypothetical) MOexit?
The hypothetical possibility of MO leaving StackExchange was mentioned here on meta.MO a few years ago and was mentioned again recently. In a comment, Sam Hopkins asked what I think is a good ...
10
votes
2
answers
323
views
What is the tag [derivations] for?
Since the tag derivations has no usage guidance at the moment, I do not know when it should be used, which is unfortunate.
67
votes
7
answers
8k
views
At what point should MO recognise it needs to leave Stack Exchange Inc?
Edit Please note this is not me posting with my moderator hat on (I've signed the letter), and I didn't discuss this with the mod team before posting this. It's not within shouting distance of being ...
88
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Stack Exchange moderation strike
You may or may not have heard that there are some controversies around moderation on the network, specifically in relation to the moderation of GPT-produced posts, but more generally around lack of ...
7
votes
1
answer
186
views
Having the MO Mathjax parser recognise \( \) is a regex away
@IsabelBeckenbach discovered why \( \) isn't accepted as a math-mode delimiter on MO. I'd always thought it was a design choice, but apparently it's just a mis-...
35
votes
1
answer
679
views
Opt out of the new upvote/downvote buttons?
I guess most of you have noticed by now the new upvote/downvote buttons. This seems to be in line with all the other SE sites (though I admit I haven't checked each and every one of them).
Does MO ...
2
votes
1
answer
273
views
Clarifying an answer that was deleted by moderators
I recently posted a controversial answer to a question, then spent a few days off site life-tending while things cooled off. When I returned with the intent of seeing how the controversy had been ...
26
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Policy toward GPT-generated conjectures?
The recent MO post, A number theoretic conjecture by Chat GPT, posed a conjecture that was generated by ChatGPT. In my opinion, it was not a particularly interesting conjecture. For me at least, the ...
6
votes
1
answer
197
views
My gravatar has changed
My automatically generated Gravatar has changed. Is that normal? I thought they were supposed to be permanent. I used to have a purple pattern IIRC, now it is light blue, a color I have never seen. It ...
17
votes
1
answer
576
views
imgur will remove some content soon. Does MathOverflow need to save images?
It has been reported that "Hosting site Imgur will remove explicit and anonymous content next month". Are there possibly some images linked in MathOverflow questions or answers, attached to ...
2
votes
0
answers
98
views
Some arrows in commutative diagrams in comments are wrongly interpreted as @-notifications; and a bonus question about CDs on MMO
I left the following comment on Pullbacks in this category of vector spaces are intersections:
Are the morphisms in your category isometries? Otherwise, I'm not sure why the category is left ...
4
votes
1
answer
218
views
Looking for an answer (written by Thurston = user9062)
I recall that Thurston answered a question, showing that a particular graph braid group is the fundamental group of a three-manifold. I even recall that the answer proved that the three-manifold was ...
7
votes
0
answers
80
views
The citation helper picks up a backlink to an MO answer when a DOI link is unavailable
In the citation helper, I searched for "Lectures on the approach to Iwasawa theory for Hasse-Weil L-functions via BdR". The unique result that shows up is the following (I've only edited two ...
9
votes
1
answer
374
views
On the tag [bitcoins]
Since several questions under the tag bitcoins have nothing to do with Bitcoin per se, but, rather, are related to proof of work, why not rename the tag cryptocurrencies or proof-of-work?
7
votes
1
answer
518
views
Repeated re-open/close votes (Tate conjecture)
The question Tate conjecture (Proved?) was asked yesterday, and quite quickly closed; it was then re-opened, and then closed (by, I think, a different set of 5). Questions about proofs of correctness ...
0
votes
0
answers
185
views
Difference between Mathematics SE and MathOverflow
If I post a question that I invented myself on Mathematics SE, I receive comments like "did you do homework?" and, eventually, "why do you ask if you know?". Fair enough. It seems ...
9
votes
3
answers
489
views
What should we call a tag on point-free topology?
The tag currently used for point-free topology (aka “pointless” topology) is “locales”. I think the name is a bit restrictive: while writing this question (which, indeed, does not contain the word “...