e

WebMathematics Interactive 2

This documentation is a concise description of WebMathematics Interactive 2 (WMI2).

1.What is WMI2?

WMI2 is a web application primarily designed for mathematics education of the age 14–21. Its main authors are the associates of the Bolyai Institute at the University of Szeged.

The most important purpose of this application is to give help in the learning of mathematics. The underlying mathematical software provide ones of the best mathematical expert knowledge accessible through computational methods. These computer based techniques do not give correct or complete solution in every occasions, but they answer the most practical questions correctly. Because of this, WMI2, like any other similar application, is primarily for self-assessment, for getting new ideas, and for solving many routine exercises quickly.

One main purpose of WMI2 is to be a symbolic computer algebra system with easy usability: no programming expertise should be needed, only minimal mathematical skills. It is clear that this means some compromise at the available types of exercises. But our intention is that the types of the exercises should come from the widest possible range and from the most important practical problems. The users who want to solve more difficult, more complex problems, may probably find it useful to proceed with professional computer algebra systems. Such a next step can be the free wxMaxima or the commercial Mathematica, which can be programmed in English.

2.How can it be used?

In order to use WMI2, only a (relatively modern) web browser is needed. Our suggestion is Mozilla Firefox 2.0, but Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0 are completely supported as well.

Basically, the screen of the application is divided into two parts. On the left, under the logo of the program, a calculator can be found, and the exercise to be solved must be typed in its upper row, but this also can be done by merely pressing the buttons of the mouse. The input formula appears immediately on the right, in the worksheet. So the right side is that side of the screen where the formulas of exercises appear, and the solutions of these exercise formulas can be seen here, too. The exercises are displayed in red, and the solutions of them in blue.

The input exercises can be solved by the greenish blue buttons of the calculator. By clicking on the solutions of exercises, they are inserted in the calculator, and this way further operations can be done on them. Copying formulas works on input formulas, too.

On the left many types of calculators can be chosen, depending on what types of exercises are wanted to be solved. The default calculator type is the secondary school one, we can solve equations, compute binomial coefficients, determine the greatest common divisor of two numbers, factorize or evaluate expressions. Another calculator types can be chosen by the upper left button of the calculator.

Like the upper left button, some other buttons open submenus. These types of buttons are called groupbuttons. Moving the mouse over a groupbutton, the group of the button appears after a short time, which is a set of some buttons similar to the original one, with the capability of similar functions to solve. So, for example, when moving the mouse over the equation solving button, there is a possibility to plot functions, and beside the greatest common divisor, the least common multiple appears in a similar way. In the group of factorization, we can reach expansion as well.

On the bottom of the worksheet on the right there can be found some icons, with them new worksheets can be started, or the content of the worksheet can be exported to a web document. There is a possibility to print the worksheet, too.

2.1.6 important tricks

We tried to make the web application as user-friendly as possible. However, we collected some useful ideas here, if everything would not be totally clear for the first sight:

3.How does it work?

The WMI2 (WebMathematics Interactive) software runs on a GNU Linux server. The Linux server as many other similar software runs an Apache webserver and a PostgreSQL database server. The main parts of WMI2 are written in the programming language PHP, which keep constant communication with the gnuplot function plotter and the Maxima computer algebra system, and the TeX/LaTeX mathematical typesetting programs and the ImageMagick image manipulation software. The formula conversions are done by the formconv and the TeXmacs softwares. The database of WMI2 was developed using the Wekker web 2.0 application generator. The advertisement system is supported by the GeoLiteCity software of MaxMind company.

We tried to use the most up-to-date web technologies, and we put everything we could on open-source base. Enquirer users can read further details about this on the webpage http://sf.net/projects/wmi.

4.Authors and Copyright

The history of WMI2 dates back to 2002. Róbert Vajda and Zoltán Kovács, two young assistant lecturers of the Bolyai Institute at the University of Szeged started developing WebMathematics Interactive website that year, which was essentially the previous version of WMI2. Many helpers and co-workers joined the development of the program. From 2006, Partíció BT., a company in Szeged has taken the development; one main speciality of this company is the management of mathematical software.

The website matek.hu, which contains an installation of WMI2, is freely available for everyone. Most of the underlying software are free software, WMI2 itself is so.

Between WMI2 and WMI1 many similarities are there, but we have rewritten the 2nd version from the basics. Most of this work was done by our colleague, Árpád Fekete, partially under his work for thesis. For the graphical works, we thank Zsigmond Kovács and Zsuzsa Deák, and the artists of the Gnome desktop environment.

It would be long to enumerate that who assisted to the completion of this program in a smaller or bigger portion. But we still try it: we believe that a quality software can be made only by cooperation. WMI2 is the result of such a joint work.

4.1.Acknowledgement

Chu-Ching Huang has the biggest part in the completion of WMI2, because he made it possible for Zoltán Kovács to take a vocational travelling to Taiwan in 2006, and he tried to direct us towards the new version with many encouragements and hints. We got much help from Gábor Bakos in the fixation of the smaller errors of the formconv software written by him, and from Miklós Maróti, who, with some encouragements, saw us through that moments which was like dead points. Kornél Csernai made nice enhancements for version 2.1 of WMI2.

We thank the translators for their contributions, namely:

We considered the suggestions of our colleagues in Szeged, János Karsai, Lajos Szilassi, Géza Makay, Zoltán Németh and Gábor Nagy many times. They are faithful critics and users of our system since WMI1. Furthermore, we thank Csaba Sárvári and the computer algebra school in Pécs signed by his name, which aided us many possibilities for introducement and classification.

We thank the suggestions of Joris van der Hoeven in the area of connection with CAS systems. We learned a lot from the technical solutions of the TeXmacs system written by him, it is the same with the Axiom and Sage computer algebra front-end systems, too. In these software there is a many-year long work of many hundreds of mathematicians and programmers.

It is too difficult to enumerate those further, primarily linux-user technicians, who gave us professional assistance or programming expert knowledge during our projekt. We mention only a few of them: Zoltán Tasnády-Szeőcs, Róbert Zana, Gábor Ancsin, József Bencs, Csaba Nagy, István Hudi, Tibor László, Gábor Szűcs and Balázs Kerekes. Without them we would not come to this point where we are at now.

At last we thank the company Consol Rendszerház Kft. for making available the web 2.0 based application developer tool, Wekker, for the public use with WMI2.

4.2.Contacts

The matek.hu website is maintained by Partíció BT. You can contact us at http://www.particio.com. We are accessible by email at the info@matek.hu address, by mobile phone on +36-706226977.