Polymath = user innovation « Jon Udell

Description

In February 2007, Mike Adams , who had recently joined Automattic, the company that makes WordPress, decided on a lark to endow all blogs running on WordPress.com with the ability to use LaTeX, the venerable mathematical typesetting language. So I can write this:

$latex \pi r^2$

And produce this:

When he introduced the feature, Mike wrote :

Odd as it may sound, I miss all the equations from my days in grad school, so I decided that what WordPress.com needed most was a hot, niche feature that maybe 17 people would use regularly.

A whole lot more than 17 people cared. And some of them, it turns out, are Fields medalists . Back in January, one member of that elite group — Tim Gowers — asked: Is massively collaborative mathematics possible? Since then, as reported by observer/participant Michael Nielsen ( 1 , 2 ), Tim Gowers, Terence Tao , and a bunch of their peers have been pioneering a massively collaborative approach to solving hard mathematical problems.

Reflecting on the outcome of the first polymath experiment, Michael Nielsen wrote :

The scope of participation in the project is remarkable. More than 1000 mathematical comments have been written on Gowers’ blog , and the blog of Terry Tao , another mathematician who has taken a leading role in the project. The Polymath wiki has approximately 59 content pages, with 11 registered contributors, and more ...

Original URL

http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/07/31/polymath-equals-user-innovatio/

http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/07/31/polymath-equals-user-innovatio/