Mathematics Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [soft-question]

For questions whose answers can't be objectively evaluated as correct or incorrect, but which are still relevant to this site. Please be specific about what you are after.

For questions whose answers cannot be objectively evaluated as correct or incorrect, but which are still relevant to mathematics.se.

12079 questions
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Databases that mathematicians use to determine if someone has solved a problem they are working on

I'm not sure if this the correct place to post this question, so if anyone knows of a better site, let me know! =) I'm sure anyone who does mathematical research asks whether or not someone has published a result on a problem that you are currently…
J. Dunivin
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Acting via a map-acceptable abuse of language?

Say we have some (geometric) object, let it be a binary tree $T$. Say we have a map $f$ which rotates $T$ at some certain nodes, let's say that it rotates the tree at the nodes labelled by odd numbers (assume that labelling\relabelling after…
billy192
  • 405
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Identification in general

In mathematics, (in general) what we mean by identification between two things? Shoud we find a bijection between the sets that we take this thing? or it is something else, if so please explain.
Mary Maths
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Approaching studying manifolds, algebraic topology etc.

This may not make a lot of sense but: I'm interested in studying more about topological manifolds, smooth manifolds, and maybe some algebraic topology later etc. but I'm not sure if I need to have a good prior understanding of classical geometry.…
user82261
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Stronger and weaker statements

I have often seen expressions like "this statement is stronger (or weaker) than that". I know what it means. If $A\Rightarrow B$ but $B\nRightarrow A$, then $A$ is stronger than $B$. But from time to time I read sentences like, say, "Picard's…
ajotatxe
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How does mathematics handle its huge size?

Since after Hilbert it isn't possible anymore to have knowledge in everything going on in mathematics. For most if not all mathematicians today there are many topics in mathematics completely unknown to them. Even if one only focuses on one specific…
user713560
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What does the tensor symbol "$\otimes$" (or whatever this symbol is) do?

I encountered the symbol "$\otimes$" in a Numberphile video about the Dehn Invariant, and I have no clue what it means. What, in layman terms, does this symbol do? I'm not all that experienced in maths and often fail to understand the jargon…
Christian Albina
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"anti-Cartesian" method in plane geometry

I have got very soft question. It's true that all plane geometry problems had analytical (easy) solutions. And everyone can take Cartesian coordinate plane and count all problems for $<\infty$ years. Is the next "anti-Cartesian" method true? We…
solver6
  • 311
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What subject/discipline does this fall under?

I am working on one way and two way ANOVA analyses as part of a python data science project and find myself lost in a rabbit-hole when thinking through combinations of possible comparisons between distributions. For example, if using the Northwind…
Matan
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confusing between rational and integer numbers

I am a bit confused to what is a rational and an integer numbers. These following numbers are integers: $1,2,3,4,... etc.$ but these numbers are also can be written as $\frac{1}{1}, \frac{2}{1}, \frac{3}{1}, \frac{4}{1},... $ and they are called…
user550260
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Proving a theorem by proving a related one

I have a question that might be stupid, but it bugs me for some time. It's quite simple: Let's say we have a conjecture, such that if the conjecture is true then another theorem will be true. Does proving the latter theorem without relying on the…
user625055
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What times what equals something?

I wanted to find x times y equals to z, where z can be anything (Full number). What I wanted : I can say, I want to find what x times y equals to 65. The answer is 13 times 5. Now, I wanted that 65 or z to be anything. I've found this site :…
PlanetGamingGG
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What is the difference of the following two mathematical sentences? (Walter Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis)

I am very poor at English. But I am reading Walter Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis now. In the book, I found the following sentence: A point $p$ is a limit point of the set $E$ if every neighborhood of $p$ contains a point $q \neq p$…
tchappy ha
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How to read papers of professors?

This is a question that has been in my mind for a month now. I am a final year M.Sc student in mathematics and applying for graduate school this year. But for applying to graduate schools, let's say in Europe, it is recommended that you should study…
saka
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Is Rudin's PMA Outdated?

I don't mean for this to sound like blasphemy, but I've heard this before. One of my analysis professors said something along the lines of "Baby Rudin is great if you need to learn how to write proofs." He went on to say that there were better, more…
JDivision
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