Where are the good search engines for mathematical formulas?

55 pointsby lo0dot015 comments

Discussion summary

Search engines for mathematical formulas include Wolfram Alpha, OEIS, and TheoremSearch, with users noting the effectiveness of ChatGPT and LLMs. There is ongoing discussion about the impact of AI tools on traditional resources.

What the discussion says

Wolfram Alpha is highly recommended for formulas.
OEIS is useful for integer sequences.
TheoremSearch is a new tool from the University of Washington.

“Wolfram Alpha is effective for math queries.”
— drnick1

“OEIS helps find info on integer sequences.”
— wasabi991011

Comments

Hacker News

Where are the good search engines, for anything?

As the push to force users onto LLMs, search has plummeted in effectively finding relevant pages. And not just goggle.

Why isn't anyone applying LLMs to interpreting the semantic meaning of the search query, and finding pages that closely match?

by johnea

Claude

by drnick1

ChatGPT and family has been effective for me, even to connect equations I’m familiar with to areas I hadn’t encountered before.

by chewbaxxa

Wolfram Alpha

by opengrass

If the formula generates an integer sequence, then searching that sequence on OEIS should give a lot of good information.

by wasabi991011

Slightly related: https://oeis.org

by jll29

+1 to wolfram alpha. But just like Chegg, I thought wolfram alpha would be harshly affected by the AI disruption.

I used it a lot in college but never since. Are current college folks still using it?

by infinito25

sure are

by throawayonthe

theoremgraph/theoremsearch, which comes from the two papers published by the math ai lab at the university of washington.

search tool links: https://www.theoremsearch.com/ (https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05216) + tagline (Describe a result in natural language, and TheoremSearch finds it across arXiv, the Stacks Project, and more. 70% more accurate than LLM search.)

https://www.theoremsearch.com/theorem-graph (https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.25363) + tagline (A unified statement-level dependency graph spanning both informal and formal mathematics, including 11.7 million arXiv statements linked to Mathlib through a shared embedding space.)

it also exposes an MCP you can see the api and its documentation so it should work with an agent!

by kurgsim22

try these

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_mathematics_topics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rules_of_inference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_equations_n...

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=List+of+scientif...

by rolph

https://www.wolframalpha.com/

by throwawayffffas

The encyclopedia of integer sequences can be quite useful: https://oeis.org/

by recursivecaveat

There’s an awesome hard copy book of these: https://oeis.org/book.html

by davidcox143

in no particular order:

https://matlas.ai

https://www.mathdeck.org

https://portal.mardi4nfdi.de/wiki/Portal

https://www.theoremsearch.com/search

https://ansumandas441.github.io/mathematical-discovery-engin...

by MrCoffee7

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Hacker News
Where are the good search engines, for anything?
As the push to force users onto LLMs, search has plummeted in effectively finding relevant pages. And not just goggle.
Why isn't anyone applying LLMs to interpreting the semantic meaning of the search query, and finding pages that closely match?
by johnea
Claude
by drnick1
ChatGPT and family has been effective for me, even to connect equations I’m familiar with to areas I hadn’t encountered before.
by chewbaxxa
Wolfram Alpha
by opengrass
If the formula generates an integer sequence, then searching that sequence on OEIS should give a lot of good information.
by wasabi991011
Slightly related: https://oeis.org
by jll29
+1 to wolfram alpha. But just like Chegg, I thought wolfram alpha would be harshly affected by the AI disruption.
I used it a lot in college but never since. Are current college folks still using it?
by infinito25
sure are
by throawayonthe
theoremgraph/theoremsearch, which comes from the two papers published by the math ai lab at the university of washington.
search tool links: https://www.theoremsearch.com/ (https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05216) + tagline (Describe a result in natural language, and TheoremSearch finds it across arXiv, the Stacks Project, and more. 70% more accurate than LLM search.)
https://www.theoremsearch.com/theorem-graph (https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.25363) + tagline (A unified statement-level dependency graph spanning both informal and formal mathematics, including 11.7 million arXiv statements linked to Mathlib through a shared embedding space.)
it also exposes an MCP you can see the api and its documentation so it should work with an agent!
by kurgsim22
try these
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_mathematics_topics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rules_of_inference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_equations_n...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=List+of+scientif...
by rolph
https://www.wolframalpha.com/
by throwawayffffas
The encyclopedia of integer sequences can be quite useful: https://oeis.org/
by recursivecaveat
There’s an awesome hard copy book of these: https://oeis.org/book.html
by davidcox143
in no particular order:
https://matlas.ai
https://www.mathdeck.org
https://portal.mardi4nfdi.de/wiki/Portal
https://www.theoremsearch.com/search
https://ansumandas441.github.io/mathematical-discovery-engin...
by MrCoffee7