(PDF) Pointed out onNot Even Wrong.
I've been telling the hotel fire joke for years. Funny how the physicist always comes out looking the brightest ;)
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
NYTimes: Blogs Provide Raw Details From Scene of the Disaster
By JOHN SCHWARTZ, 12/28/2004
"For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.
The so-called blogosphere, with its personal journals published on the Web, has become best known as a forum for bruising political discussion and media criticism. But the technology proved a ready medium for instant news of the tsunami disaster and for collaboration over ways to help..."
As the amateur radio community ages, their role as emergency communicators from war or natural disaster areas is being taken over in part by bloggers. ARRL (American Radio Relay League) is reporting on current DX efforts. Still, in an area with no infrastructure, running an HF rig on a generator takes much less power and is easier to do than blogging -- especially if you don't have an adequate way to charge your cell or sat phone. HF signals can travel for thousands of miles without a repeater, and the equipment can be handbuilt using spare parts or kits. Commerical sat comms just aren't as practical in many emergency situations.
"For vivid reporting from the enormous zone of tsunami disaster, it was hard to beat the blogs.
The so-called blogosphere, with its personal journals published on the Web, has become best known as a forum for bruising political discussion and media criticism. But the technology proved a ready medium for instant news of the tsunami disaster and for collaboration over ways to help..."
As the amateur radio community ages, their role as emergency communicators from war or natural disaster areas is being taken over in part by bloggers. ARRL (American Radio Relay League) is reporting on current DX efforts. Still, in an area with no infrastructure, running an HF rig on a generator takes much less power and is easier to do than blogging -- especially if you don't have an adequate way to charge your cell or sat phone. HF signals can travel for thousands of miles without a repeater, and the equipment can be handbuilt using spare parts or kits. Commerical sat comms just aren't as practical in many emergency situations.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
e4engineering.com: Tuneable windows
From Design Engineering 12/16/04
"Secrets that zip across offices through wireless computing networks are all to easy also zip through office windows into the hands of ones competitors.
But now researchers at the University of Warwick have come up with a solution to the problem. They have devised a method of producing tuneable surfaces that can selectively block signals from wireless networks from spilling out of the office."
I've reported on this before but the tunability of this application really makes a huge difference. The other applications were installed in walls and (I think) were just wideband. This is problematic if you want to allow a pager, just not ____, for example.
"Secrets that zip across offices through wireless computing networks are all to easy also zip through office windows into the hands of ones competitors.
But now researchers at the University of Warwick have come up with a solution to the problem. They have devised a method of producing tuneable surfaces that can selectively block signals from wireless networks from spilling out of the office."
I've reported on this before but the tunability of this application really makes a huge difference. The other applications were installed in walls and (I think) were just wideband. This is problematic if you want to allow a pager, just not ____, for example.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Searching for Math Equations and Symbols on the Web: Part 3
Part 1, Part 2
No joy on the LaTEX front. J's post on math on the web caused me to smack my forehead and wonder if I had been missing something big. Well, yes and no. First, the way Wikipedia deals with symbols, etc., is actually pleasant. Compare to other methods. So I decided to try the major search engines using the coding used to implement the TeX markup in Wikipedia.
Google
\nabla – found places the word "nabla" appears including the history of the symbol, etc.
\partial – yuck. found partial den tu res, partial-b1rth abo rti ons, Springer, Wiley, and Dekker journals (but just from the titles apparently)
"\nabla" – same as above, but also has this page that has what looks like TeX in the source code.
"\partial" – same yuck.
open tag math close tag \nabla* – (as compared to above and as compared to math nabla) better than without the math - but this is just my trick of specifying domain when doing natural language searching!! It doesn't really get any TeX stuff. It does retrieve other wikis that give instructions for adding formulae.
open tag math close tag\partial – see above. Note, though that this page was generated in LaTeX and converted to HTML - the equations are in fact PNGs but the alt's for the images are the actual LaTeX writing! I tried this in the google image search and it gives me whole page jpgs, not individual equations for the most part. Here's an exception.
So, it looks like you can search for the TeX coding in the images search somewhat successfully if the author used a conversion tool that added the encoding as the ALT for the image.
Yahoo
Very much the same as Google. At first I thought the image thing was working much better, but then I realized that they were all from the same site.
Teoma
Doesn't index symbols at all
*Note: apparently blogger is trying to interpret the math tag. curious.
No joy on the LaTEX front. J's post on math on the web caused me to smack my forehead and wonder if I had been missing something big. Well, yes and no. First, the way Wikipedia deals with symbols, etc., is actually pleasant. Compare to other methods. So I decided to try the major search engines using the coding used to implement the TeX markup in Wikipedia.
\nabla – found places the word "nabla" appears including the history of the symbol, etc.
\partial – yuck. found partial den tu res, partial-b1rth abo rti ons, Springer, Wiley, and Dekker journals (but just from the titles apparently)
"\nabla" – same as above, but also has this page that has what looks like TeX in the source code.
"\partial" – same yuck.
open tag math close tag \nabla* – (as compared to above and as compared to math nabla) better than without the math - but this is just my trick of specifying domain when doing natural language searching!! It doesn't really get any TeX stuff. It does retrieve other wikis that give instructions for adding formulae.
open tag math close tag\partial – see above. Note, though that this page was generated in LaTeX and converted to HTML - the equations are in fact PNGs but the alt's for the images are the actual LaTeX writing! I tried this in the google image search and it gives me whole page jpgs, not individual equations for the most part. Here's an exception.
So, it looks like you can search for the TeX coding in the images search somewhat successfully if the author used a conversion tool that added the encoding as the ALT for the image.
Yahoo
Very much the same as Google. At first I thought the image thing was working much better, but then I realized that they were all from the same site.
Teoma
Doesn't index symbols at all
*Note: apparently blogger is trying to interpret the math tag. curious.
Friday, December 03, 2004
e4engineering.com: Another nanotube yarn
29 Nov 2004
This one claims a lot more than the previous attempt I blogged about. It's an electrically conductive, bullet-proof, temperature adjusting miracle fabric. They use multi-walled tubes, instead of single-tubed.
This one claims a lot more than the previous attempt I blogged about. It's an electrically conductive, bullet-proof, temperature adjusting miracle fabric. They use multi-walled tubes, instead of single-tubed.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Koders - Source Code Search Engine
Pointed out on Resource Shelf
This is a search engine for code.
Appears to be similar but more complete than what's offered in Safari. I'd be interested in hearing back from somebody who's tried this how well it works.
Update 11/10: Resource Shelf now says where they read about it. The NewsForge article also has a brief interview with Darren Rush, the founder and chief architect.
This is a search engine for code.
Koders makes it easy for software developers to find existing source code that solves many common development problems with our vast index of working source code from a variety of open source projects. In many cases you may find code that solves the exact problem you are working on, and in other cases, you can find an 80% solution - where existing code can be suited to your needs with minor modifications.
Appears to be similar but more complete than what's offered in Safari. I'd be interested in hearing back from somebody who's tried this how well it works.
Update 11/10: Resource Shelf now says where they read about it. The NewsForge article also has a brief interview with Darren Rush, the founder and chief architect.
Friday, November 05, 2004
AZoNano Launch Online Open Access Journal of Nanotechnology
The Online Journal of Nanotechnology is based on a free access publishing model, coupled with what is believed to be a unique development in the field of scientific publishing – the distribution of journal revenue between the authors, peer reviewers and site operators.Note also that AZoNano now has an RSS news feed. Pointed out by the Institute of Nanotechnology newsletter from November 2004.
The Online Journal of Nanotechnology at AZoNano.com will publish high quality articles and papers on all aspects of nanotechnology and related scientific, social and ethical issues. All the contributions will be reviewed by a world class panel of founding editors who are experts in a wide spectrum of nanotechnology science.
Full text ebook: Notes on Molecular Orbital Calculations
Dana Roth of Caltech pointed this out on CHMINF-L
Roberts, John D., 1918-
Notes on molecular orbital calculations / John D. Roberts ; illustrated by the author New York : W. A. Benjamin, 1961
Uncontrolled Keywords: organic chemistry; atomic orbital models; electronic energy levels; bond orders; free-valence indexes; charge distributions; application of group theory to MO determinants; aromaticity; 4n+2 rule; chemical reactivity
The book is in PDF format.
Roberts, John D., 1918-
Notes on molecular orbital calculations / John D. Roberts ; illustrated by the author New York : W. A. Benjamin, 1961
Uncontrolled Keywords: organic chemistry; atomic orbital models; electronic energy levels; bond orders; free-valence indexes; charge distributions; application of group theory to MO determinants; aromaticity; 4n+2 rule; chemical reactivity
The book is in PDF format.
PhysicsWeb: The greatest equations ever
Pointed out by the The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology v3 n23 (November 5, 2004), although I am subscribed to the feed.
by Robert P Crease, October 2004.
This Physics World columnist asked readers to submit nominations for the greatest equations of all time. What he found out is that there were different interpretations of the question and that some of the equations have a deeper political, cultural, or historical context that is perhaps more important than the scientific use.
by Robert P Crease, October 2004.
This Physics World columnist asked readers to submit nominations for the greatest equations of all time. What he found out is that there were different interpretations of the question and that some of the equations have a deeper political, cultural, or historical context that is perhaps more important than the scientific use.
Blogging will continue to be light
While I prepare for a Conference. Expect more regular posting again after 11/22.
Friday, October 15, 2004
The New York Times:Malaria Vaccine Proves Effective
By Donald G. McNeil Jr. (10/15/04) (free reg. req.)
Thank goodness. Hopefully this will lead to an even more effective vaccine. I worry, though, that it will be impossible to vaccinate enough children - especially if it has to be repeated several times.
For the first time, researchers say, a vaccine against malaria has shown that it can save children from infection or death.
The vaccine, tested on thousands of children in Mozambique, was hardly perfect: It protected them from catching the disease only about 30 percent of the time and prevented it from becoming life-threatening only about 58 percent of the time.
But because malaria kills more than a million people a year, 700,000 of them children, even partial protection would be a public health victory. The disease, caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes, is found in 90 countries, and drug-resistant strains are spreading.
Thank goodness. Hopefully this will lead to an even more effective vaccine. I worry, though, that it will be impossible to vaccinate enough children - especially if it has to be repeated several times.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
EEVL Free Trade Pub directory: computers, business and engineering trade publications
Pointed out in the EEVL news feed.
All of the trade pubs here are free to "qualified" subscribers. Some mentioned on the front page are: Biophotonics, Solid State Technology, Photonics Spectra...
All of the trade pubs here are free to "qualified" subscribers. Some mentioned on the front page are: Biophotonics, Solid State Technology, Photonics Spectra...
Monday, October 11, 2004
IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement: Sensor-Rich Feedback Control
(link above for IEEE Xplore subscribers only, I think).
by Rafal Zbikowski. v.7 n3 (Sept 2004):19-26.
The article discusses the insect-like micro air vehicle (MAV). A PBS show recently showed some of these in action. Trying to design a computer like an insect's brain is apparently pretty tricky. According to the author, 98% of the insect's brain neurons are for sensory processing. So imagine all the little tiny sensors necessary, and the little tiny computer that has to take all the inputs and take action while flying.
by Rafal Zbikowski. v.7 n3 (Sept 2004):19-26.
The article discusses the insect-like micro air vehicle (MAV). A PBS show recently showed some of these in action. Trying to design a computer like an insect's brain is apparently pretty tricky. According to the author, 98% of the insect's brain neurons are for sensory processing. So imagine all the little tiny sensors necessary, and the little tiny computer that has to take all the inputs and take action while flying.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Nanotech Searching Tips
This is a boiled down version of the talk I gave with Susan Fingerman and Carol Brueggemeier at the Greater Washington Nanotech Alliance Fall 2004 Symposium. Thanks go out to all those from the CHMINF-L who provided feedback for the presentation. I announced this talk in an earlier post.
All of the following cover nanotech: Compendex, Inspec, IEEE Xplore, CSA databases on materials, environment and aerospace, Web of Science, Chem Abstracts, BIOSIS, PubMed, SPIE DL.
You may be surprised! An article with this title, "Nanosensor for Detection of Glucose”, was found in ... SPIE DL and not in PubMed.
Biologists and chemists should try the engineering literature, engineers should try the biological and medical literature.
See in particular: Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science and Technology – a weekly compilation of the latest research on nanoscale systems.
See also:
IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology
Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering
Journal of Nanobiotechnology
Nanostructured Materials
Physical Review A-E
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
Smart Materials and Structures (and many more)
These sites were selected specifically because they point to or provide literature. Look for the “publications” link or do a site search if available. Some full text, some citations, some abstracts only. These provide many links to other organizations, conference and funding information etc.
Finding the Vocabulary and the Literature of Nanotechnology
Language Matters
If you try to define nanotechnology, you come up with ≤ 100nm, ≤200nm, several hundred nm, molecular, atomic, macromolecular – it means many things to many people. Although the widespread usage of the term "nanotech" is more recent, we've been heading that way since the 40's and the technology has been evolving over that time period.
Web Searching
In general, in web searching, you are searching through an immense, world-wide collection of file types and formats. There is no spell checking, vocabulary control, language convention, or barrier to publishing. Nevertheless, it can be tremendously valuable in finding research, people, supplies, and everything else nanotech!
- Jargon is important, your word choice will determine the scientific discipline and sometimes the country the results come from. Use specific words that would be used by a researcher in this subject (maybe one with a different academic background) to describe the specific process. Think also of older, perhaps obsolete terms that might still be in use in other countries.
- Use the most important terms first, followed by several terms that modify or narrow the search. Use more words instead of less. OR synonyms - all you can think of - to be comprehensive.
- If the results show that your word has multiple meanings (like bank – place to put money, side of a river or stream) add a very general word that will take you to the domain ex: (bank OR riparian) ex2: bank AND –(money)
- Look through at least the first 3 pages – the top 10 results may be commercial sites that are better at “search engine optimization” than academic sites.
- It’s an iterative process: review the first few pages of results, then modify the search and try again.
Finding the Jargon
- Consult a thesaurus or glossary like The Institute of Nanotechnology or
PACS (Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme) Nanotech Supplement - Glean words from a known document
- Consider searching in British spelling or in German, French, Japanese, etc.
Other Tips
- More on synonyms: the internet has no standardized spelling or formula conventions. Search for formulae in Hill order, empirical order, and with abbreviations (ex: Yttrium orthoferrite, YFeO3, FeO3Y; ex2: NZP, NaZr2(PO4)3, “Sodium Zirconium Phosphate”). Use all the variations of the word because there’s no truncation like epitax* (as in Inspec)
- Nano is seen the same as NaNO by most engines!
- Spell out processes/techniques – use “molecular beam epitaxy”, not MBE
- Remember quotes. Quotes are almost universally recognized as signifying a “phrase search” – the words will appear together, only in the order provided. Most web search engines do not have proximity operators that allow you to find the words near each other but in any order.
- Try dropping the term “nano” from the search for more results and adding it to narrow the search. Compare searching focused ion beam lithography with nanolithography focused ion
Specialized Web Searching
- Scirus – a science web search engine from Elsevier
- Chemie.de and Bionity – specialized chemistry and biotech web search engines
- Web results provided in CSA and ISI databases
- Science.gov and/or Scitech.gov
- Government databases freely available: PubMed, Energy Citations, NTIS, Agricola
- Pre-print and e-print servers like arxiv
Fee-based Resources
Where do I begin?
All of the following cover nanotech: Compendex, Inspec, IEEE Xplore, CSA databases on materials, environment and aerospace, Web of Science, Chem Abstracts, BIOSIS, PubMed, SPIE DL.
You may be surprised! An article with this title, "Nanosensor for Detection of Glucose”, was found in ... SPIE DL and not in PubMed.
Biologists and chemists should try the engineering literature, engineers should try the biological and medical literature.
What terms do I use?
- Controlled vocabulary has not kept up with current trends
- Be careful using popular terminology. ex: Carbon nanotubes stuffed with buckeyballs i.e. “Peapods”
- Use wildcards to search variant forms. ex: Nano?lithography will find nanolithography, nano-lithography, and nano lithography
Journals
See in particular: Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science and Technology – a weekly compilation of the latest research on nanoscale systems.
See also:
IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology
Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering
Journal of Nanobiotechnology
Nanostructured Materials
Physical Review A-E
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
Smart Materials and Structures (and many more)
Community of Science
- link
- Search database of 500,000 experts worldwide
- Search Medline, Federal Register, FedBiz Ops/Commerce Business Daily, Agricola, funded research, and patents
- Sign up to receive funding alerts
Research and Industry Portals
These sites were selected specifically because they point to or provide literature. Look for the “publications” link or do a site search if available. Some full text, some citations, some abstracts only. These provide many links to other organizations, conference and funding information etc.
- U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative
- U.K. Institute of Nanotechnology
- Foresight Institute
- Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center
- nanotechweb.org from IOP
- AZoNano.com
- Nano Science and Technology Institute
- Nanobiotechnology Center
Friday, October 01, 2004
Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument
This is the official site for the national monument created after the May 1980 eruption. Scientists are predicting (as much as possible) a new eruption in the next few days. There's a live volcano cam also available at the site, but this eruption should be a lot less to look at than the last one.
The main site pointed out by The NSDL Scout Report for the Physical Sciences v3 n20 (October 1, 2004).
The main site pointed out by The NSDL Scout Report for the Physical Sciences v3 n20 (October 1, 2004).
Monday, September 27, 2004
e4engineering.com: Deadly Nanocarpet
It not only changes color when it encounters different chemical agents, it can kill bacteria. How neat.
Friday, September 24, 2004
Holey Fibers, Batman!
Actual title: Holey Fibers Shed New Light by Chelsea Wald Physical Review Focus 9/20/04
This is actually pretty neat - they've found a way to convert commonly available laser light into some of the wavelengths they hadn't been able to make a laser in. There are some valuable biomed applications, apparently. The primary article is F. Benabid et al., "Ultrahigh Efficiency Laser Wavelength Conversion in a Gas-Filled Hollow Core Photonic Crystal Fiber by Pure Stimulated Rotational Raman Scattering in Molecular Hydrogen" Phys. Rev. Lett. 93 (2004). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.123903
This is actually pretty neat - they've found a way to convert commonly available laser light into some of the wavelengths they hadn't been able to make a laser in. There are some valuable biomed applications, apparently. The primary article is F. Benabid et al., "Ultrahigh Efficiency Laser Wavelength Conversion in a Gas-Filled Hollow Core Photonic Crystal Fiber by Pure Stimulated Rotational Raman Scattering in Molecular Hydrogen" Phys. Rev. Lett. 93 (2004). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.123903
Searching for Math Equations and Symbols on the Web: Part 2
Ok, so I talked about searching for math represented on the web using entity and code values (those starting with an & and ending with an ;). What about pages like this one, just mentioned in the new edition of The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology v3 n20 (September 24, 2004)? If you "view source", you'll see that they use .gif files for the math. This particular page uses the word curl several times, but there's no alt for the image, so there's less information for an image search engine to use. Don't even try to search for curl, but if you try grad OR gradient in Google images, on the second page of the results, you'll get someone's handwritten notes. The collection of images in Yahoo seems much smaller - you do get handwritten notes if you enter curl math. If you call the symbol I've been calling grad by it's more generic name "del", you'll actually get a couple of equations, interestingly enough. Google yields a few results with del math. See one interesting one: http://home.usit.net/~cmdaven/hyprcplx.htm . AltaVista is apparently still using it's own technology and collection, but the results are not much better.
So, what about the new(er) image searches that analyze the picture itself instead of just the context and alt text? Those that do feature extraction? Can they pick out an integral? or a gradient? The one at Columbia I knew about a while ago is apparently down (websEEk). The one at Penn State by Wang and Li runs only on a practice set of images - and they're from a cd of clip art. (Actually I'm having a hard time finding any of these so I just posted a request to a list for help.)
Picsearch.com (found via SearchEngineWatch, I don't know if it's content based)
This one does better. If you cut and paste the ∂ or the ∇, it actually comes up with mathematical equations. Now, what if we try ∂x/∂t ? Nothing, but ∂x does yield ∂x . It's a start but I 'm not going to try to narrow the results!
I'll add to this (hopefully) when I find some other engines.
So, what about the new(er) image searches that analyze the picture itself instead of just the context and alt text? Those that do feature extraction? Can they pick out an integral? or a gradient? The one at Columbia I knew about a while ago is apparently down (websEEk). The one at Penn State by Wang and Li runs only on a practice set of images - and they're from a cd of clip art. (Actually I'm having a hard time finding any of these so I just posted a request to a list for help.)
Picsearch.com (found via SearchEngineWatch, I don't know if it's content based)
This one does better. If you cut and paste the ∂ or the ∇, it actually comes up with mathematical equations. Now, what if we try ∂x/∂t ? Nothing, but ∂x does yield ∂x . It's a start but I 'm not going to try to narrow the results!
I'll add to this (hopefully) when I find some other engines.
Searching for Math Equations and Symbols on the Web: Part 1
NB: I derive an almost perverse pleasure in torturing search engines. Please also note that I'd like to form this into a paper for publication so I'm calling dibs on my ideas (link, disagree, comment, expand upon ... but please don't copy and republish)
It came to me that I'm sure there are a ton of web pages out there with papers talking about div, curl, grad, summation, integration.... all these things best described by their equations and symbols. Mathematicians frequently solve and prove solutions to equations divorced from the applications of the equations to describe nature. Physicists develop new equations to describe nature and then try to solve them, engineers look up solutions to equations to solve real, immediate, application problems. So, how can physicists, engineers, and librarians search for math stuff on the internet if the writeups and the equations themselves do not use the language of the physical phenomena the equations describe? Or if the equations are not yet named and famous? Or are not recognizable as belonging to the physical phenomena?
You can search in Safari by code snippet and in chemistry databases (like the ChemIDplus from NLM) by substructure. (You can also try the ACM Portal with code snippets, but there's no real way to search the open internet for chemical structures.) That's pretty cool, but what about searching for a particular mathematical formula? In Inspec and MathSci Net, the subject headings are probably the best access points and there are rules for representing symbols (like /sub/ depending sometimes on the vendor) – but this doesn't help if the mathematical formula is not linked to the particular phenomenon you're studying. I discussed in an earlier post how there are various ways to represent math on the web. So, what happens when you search for ∑ or & sum; or & #8721; ? Maybe sum isn't the best choice because normally you'd have an n=a somewhere attached so I'll also search for the partial derivative symbol ∂ and the gradient ∇.
Google
Graphic symbol pasted in – does nothing, not even an error
Name code or entity (starting an & and end with a ; ) – returns mostly tables and posts on how to use MathML or the codes or various things from computer programming. For the partial derivative symbol (∂), Google returns nothing on the code (& #8706;) and returns non-math stuff for the entity with one exception - an improperly created abstract that actually shows the code, not the symbol.
Yahoo
Graphic symbol pasted in – zero results.
Name code or entity – Yahoo ignores the & and the ; and searches for Sum, or part, for the entity and the numbers for the code. You end up with phone numbers, part numbers, etc.
Teoma
Graphic symbol pasted in – lots of results, it's seeing them all as empty boxes, so it's finding non-romanized language pages.
Name code or entity – Teoma apparently ignores the & and the ; and searches for sum, or part, for the entity and the numbers for the code. Quotes don't help.
It came to me that I'm sure there are a ton of web pages out there with papers talking about div, curl, grad, summation, integration.... all these things best described by their equations and symbols. Mathematicians frequently solve and prove solutions to equations divorced from the applications of the equations to describe nature. Physicists develop new equations to describe nature and then try to solve them, engineers look up solutions to equations to solve real, immediate, application problems. So, how can physicists, engineers, and librarians search for math stuff on the internet if the writeups and the equations themselves do not use the language of the physical phenomena the equations describe? Or if the equations are not yet named and famous? Or are not recognizable as belonging to the physical phenomena?
You can search in Safari by code snippet and in chemistry databases (like the ChemIDplus from NLM) by substructure. (You can also try the ACM Portal with code snippets, but there's no real way to search the open internet for chemical structures.) That's pretty cool, but what about searching for a particular mathematical formula? In Inspec and MathSci Net, the subject headings are probably the best access points and there are rules for representing symbols (like /sub/ depending sometimes on the vendor) – but this doesn't help if the mathematical formula is not linked to the particular phenomenon you're studying. I discussed in an earlier post how there are various ways to represent math on the web. So, what happens when you search for ∑ or & sum; or & #8721; ? Maybe sum isn't the best choice because normally you'd have an n=a somewhere attached so I'll also search for the partial derivative symbol ∂ and the gradient ∇.
Graphic symbol pasted in – does nothing, not even an error
Name code or entity (starting an & and end with a ; ) – returns mostly tables and posts on how to use MathML or the codes or various things from computer programming. For the partial derivative symbol (∂), Google returns nothing on the code (& #8706;) and returns non-math stuff for the entity with one exception - an improperly created abstract that actually shows the code, not the symbol.
Yahoo
Graphic symbol pasted in – zero results.
Name code or entity – Yahoo ignores the & and the ; and searches for Sum, or part, for the entity and the numbers for the code. You end up with phone numbers, part numbers, etc.
Teoma
Graphic symbol pasted in – lots of results, it's seeing them all as empty boxes, so it's finding non-romanized language pages.
Name code or entity – Teoma apparently ignores the & and the ; and searches for sum, or part, for the entity and the numbers for the code. Quotes don't help.
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