The Massachusetts Institute for Technology Presents

An Experimental Study Group Production

Welcome to World Web Math, an ongoing project that will attempt to present the fundamentals of elementary undergraduate-level introductory mathematics with the myriad relations between all of the subjects.

Such an ambitious project will go through several stages on its way to completion, if completion is indeed possible; right now (Fall 1998), the ESG Math Hypertext is on its way from one stage to another. At further stages toward completion, World Web Math can be used as a reference, as a supplement or even replacement to traditional textbooks.

World Web Math currently only contains sections on calculus and vector calculus. Some amount of differential equations, linear algebra, statistics, trigonometry, geometry and high school algebra have been added to supplement the calculus and vector calculus sections as they are deemed necessary. See the main directory for more details.

Each World Web Math section contains numerous pages which explain concepts. Pages are designed to be modular, and there is frequently more than one page per concept. Proofs are often sketched out, often with no pretense of rigor (that's for another hypertext). It is thus possible to choose between many orders and ways of presenting the material, and this flexibility makes it easy for you to write your own hypertextbook; just link together the pages you like in the order you want, rewriting or adding only the couple of pages that you feel we did badly or not at all.

At the current stage of this project, equations are displayed in a manner that allows the greatest number of users to see the equations in the least amount of time. The displays are static, and often set off in color. Future stages of the project are expected to use WebEQ2 for inline equations. A major part of the project is changing the presentation from a long and sometimes nonfunctional format to a more easily read format. Very roughly, those pages with a white background have been revised, and those with the default or gray background need to be updated.

Comments of all kinds, especially (gulp) math errors and typographic oversights, are welcome. If you have suggestions for ways in which the ESG WWMath Hypertext could be improved or extended, we'd like to hear from you.

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy!