Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I love that you asked this, but I think it's not quite the right question.

I've been wishing for years that someone would maintain a "dependency graph" for mathematical concepts. I think Khan Academy tried to do something like this at one point but took it down a long time ago. As long as we're far enough from the bleeding-edge of research topics, I feel like maths is the one field where this might be possible to do really well. You should be able to point at something you don't understand and trace backwards in a very granular fashion until you hit a concept you already know/understand, and then learn what you need to fill in the gap!




I had wanted to build a website like this as a hobby, except not limited strictly to mathematical concepts. I wanted to build a graph of the skills/concepts you’d need to understand electrical impedance, fix an air conditioning system, bake bread reliably.

One source of information could be course syllabi, which describe a progression of topics and their prerequisites.

Rather than be the authority on what concepts must precede others, I envisioned making a system that could represent different educational approaches: not every educator agrees that Calculus I ought to be a prerequisite for studying Physics I. Not all bread recipes use yeast.

I had a hard time finding a good domain for this effort. “Tree of knowledge” dot TLD was taken.


That's more-or-less the purpose of https://mathworld.wolfram.com/ or at least, it's significantly better at it than, say, wikipedia.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: