zslastman comments on Open thread, Oct. 12 - Oct. 18, 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: MrMind 12 October 2015 06:57AM

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Comment author: zslastman 16 October 2015 08:22:04AM *  0 points [-]

pen and paper is far more instant than any method I can imagine of poking mathematics in through a keyboard.

Yeah... I think I just have to bite this bullet. If you do math professionally and the people you know work onto pen and paper, then that's the answer.

It's just.... I feel like I can imagine a system that would be better than pen and paper. There's so much tedious repetition of symbols when I do algebra on paper, and inevitably while simplifying some big integral I write something wrong, and have to scratch it out, and the whole thing becomes a confusing mess. writing my verbal thoughts down with a keyboard is just as quick and intuitive as a pen and paper. There must be a better way...

Comment author: ChristianKl 16 October 2015 09:26:54AM 0 points [-]

It's just.... I feel like I can imagine a system that would be better than pen and paper.

That means there's a possible startup.

Comment author: zslastman 16 October 2015 12:01:56PM 0 points [-]

Ha, in theory, but it looks like the guys at TeXmacs are already selling the product for free, so no dice...

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 October 2015 09:09:46PM 0 points [-]

I made with my Kindle the experience that it's better than regular paper books while reading books on a smartphone isn't. Currently most mathmaticians use paper. If someone would design a mathematical editor that's better than paper, I think that could be a huge commercial success.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 16 October 2015 11:55:12AM 0 points [-]

Would it make sense to write on a tablet and have the computer do OCR? (Hypothetical system.)

Comment author: zslastman 16 October 2015 12:01:22PM 1 point [-]

Yes, that would also be great, but I a) I can't afford such a tablet, and b) I strongly suspect that the OCR would be inaccurate enough that I'd end up wishing for a keyboard anyway. Hell accurate voice recognition would be better, but I'm still waiting for that to happen...

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 16 October 2015 05:36:28PM 1 point [-]

Now that I think about it, OCR would be much harder for math than for text.

Comment author: Lumifer 16 October 2015 05:45:17PM 0 points [-]