Dear Ellis Cooper,
Since this project entails substantial programming effort, I would like to measure the level of support the project could expect from the category-oriented research community. Your judgement is much appreciated.
In addition to the peoples who have expressed their support in public many have done it privately. None have opposed it yet. Some peoples have expressed doubts about the feasability. In a letter to some of my correspondants I wrote:
The iBourbaki project is by nature a very long term project. Mathematics is vast, and it may take a few generations to fully integrate the main body of mathematics to iBourbaki. Also the potential contributors will refuse to work seriously on something that may disappear a few years later. They should have the possibility of making lasting contributions. Hence we should make sure that iBourbaki can last for more than one generation. It will be like building a cathedral! Of course, iBourbaki should evolve, since mathematics and the technology evolve. But mathematics is also remarquably stable. The mathematics of Euclid is still valid today, inspite of the fact that we now have non-euclidian geometry. I expect that the main corpus of iBourbaki will not change very much over long period of times. We need to conciliate long term duration with the rapid developpement of technology.
The realisation of iBourbaki depends on the collaboration of the mathematical community in large, not only of category theorists. It also depends on the collaboration and support of a group of computer scientists. My task at this point is to convince peoples that the project is worthy and feasable. André -------- Message d'origine-------- De: Ellis D. Cooper [mailto:xtalv1@netropolis.net] Date: mar. 23/09/2008 09:33 À: Joyal, André; categories@mta.ca Objet : categories: BourWiki-iBourbaki-FunctorWiki Dear Andre Joyal and categorists, Various networking models for collaborating on mathematics have been alluded to or suggested on this list (which is itself based on the listserv networking model). ********************************************************************************************************* Patrik Eklund on 7 Oct 2007 wrote: "Sound-video" is nothing but Skype, but adding whiteboards, that can be saved and worked with also offline, you have very good possibilities. The whiteboard mainly accepts non-formatted text, drawings and images. You can read doc and ppt file which are "pasted" as bitmaps on the whiteboard. They include desktop sharing if that would be required. Mathematical text I add through LaTeX, compiling, converting to pdf, and using the snapshot tool to paste bitmapped formulas on the whiteboard. ********************************************************************************************************* Dusko Pavlovic on 15 Sep 2008 wrote: an improved process, combining the integrity, and perhaps the structure of the categories@mta community with the available wiki-methods may bring categorical methods into a dynamic environment, perhaps more natural for them than books and papers. ********************************************************************************************************* Andrej Bauer on 16 Sep 2008 wrote: the usual kind of wiki is not suitable for collaborative science, but recently there has been news of a special wiki for scientists which has good support for references, keeps track of who said what, and has a rating system. ********************************************************************************************************* Meredith Gregory on 21 Sep 2008 wrote: - What is missing in most mathematical presentations is a view into the often very human and very messy process of getting to the presentation. <snip> Ever since Andre Joyal mentioned a 2nd life for Bourbaki i can't stop thinking about a Bourbaki colloquium run in Second Life <http://secondlife.com/> ********************************************************************************************************* Jacques Carette on 22 Sep 2008 wrote: I hereby volunteer my time and the technical resources I have at my disposal to 'host' a "New Bourbaki based on CT" project. ********************************************************************************************************* John Baez on 22 Sep 2008 wrote: Mathematics may be too much in a state of foundational flux for a systematic approach to be successful right now. Maybe the best we can hope for is something a bit more like Wikipedia, where different people contribute different portions of text, and they don't cohere in a polished whole. But presumably anyone calling for a new Bourbaki wants something different from Wikipedia. <snip> I would like to see lots of people try lots of different things. ********************************************************************************************************* A network model not yet mentioned is the multiple-thread technical support forum. See, for example http://www.theimagingsourceforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=6 http://www.essentialobjects.com/Forum/Default.aspx http://www.codeproject.com/KB/ajax/ http://www.codeproject.com/Lounge.aspx?msg=2730104#xx2730104xx Technical support forums centralize expertise, whereas collaborative mathematics would best have mutually supportive distributed expertise. Each thread would be moderated to maintain topic and civility, like the categories listserv. Crucial to much mathematical collaboration is sharing of diagrams alongside mathematical expressions and natural language text. A webcam over a pad provides this important function. I myself have used Skype to discuss one-sided limits with my son who is away at college, where instead of looking at each other's face we aimed our webcams at pads. One step beyond separate pads beneath webcams is the idea of a "virtual drawing" which per discussion thread would overlay appropriately transparent images from multiple collaborators: a shared blackboard in your web browser. A web-site for collaborative mathematics could combine the secure multiple-thread forum model with virtual drawing. Every participant would have the option to record part or all of a thread for off-line review. Combined with video-conferencing via Skype or the like, real-time collaboration is an option. Since this project entails substantial programming effort, I would like to measure the level of support the project could expect from the category-oriented research community. Your judgement is much appreciated. Ellis D. Cooper