Re: [EXTERNAL] Notable mention of rich math applications, "details-on-demand" from Neil Soiffer on 2020-09-16 (public-mathml4@w3.org from September 2020)

From: Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2020 17:10:07 -0700
To: Moritz Schubotz <schubotz@ckurs.de>
Cc: Physikerwelt <wiki@physikerwelt.de>, Patrick Ion <pion@umich.edu>, Murray Sargent <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>, Deyan Ginev <deyan.ginev@gmail.com>, public-mathml4@w3.org
Message-ID: <CAESRWkDybv9dsnLXt4jDmepP5YZPX4o2qtLxfbb42mBBy2y-SQ@mail.gmail.com>
I heard back from Jonas and indeed it was hand drawn. He pointed me to a
book he wrote about (I think) the importance of good illustrations in
teaching science
<http://mokomes5-8.ugdome.lt/images/Nauji_dokumentai/Metodika/IGMK_Metodika.pdf>.
It's in Lithuanian, but google can translate bits that you copy over pretty
well. I think it would be a cool and useful tool to do this automatically
or at least make it easy to do.

    Neil


On Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 3:19 PM Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> Moritz,
>
> Thanks for the response. Drawing the math is (thankfully) easy to do these
> days. My question was focused on the annotations and how they got linked
> with the lines to each bit of math: was it hand drawn or was a program
> used. Given the state of things in 2013, I'd strongly suspect "hand drawn".
> I'll reach out to Jonas Liugaila via linkedin to verify my suspicion, but I
> don't see a contact for the second author (of the svg). If you know how to
> contact him, could you find out if he did it by hand or used a tool.
>
> Thanks,
>
>    Neil
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 2:30 PM Moritz Schubotz <schubotz@ckurs.de> wrote:
>
>> Hi Neil,
>>
>>
>>
>> from what was openly documented it appears that the image was
>> originally a PNG generated by
>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonasliugaila/ we could asked him which
>> tool he did use?
>>
>>
>>
>> The PNG was then redrawn as SVG by this guy
>>
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:JTBarnabas
>>
>>  in 2013 and the exact value of c^2 was changed on August 21 this year.
>>
>>
>>
>> I am not sure, if I understand the data- annotations, comment. So I
>> hope the rest of the email makes sense to you:
>>
>>
>> The complete MathML expression of the example reads.
>>
>>
>>
>> '<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="E=mc^{2}"
>> display="inline">  <semantics id="e1">    <mrow id="e2" xref="e12">
>>   <mi id="e3" xref="e14">E</mi>      <mo id="e4" xref="e13">=</mo>
>>  <mrow id="e5" xref="e15">        <mi id="e6" xref="e17">m</mi>
>> <mo id="e7" xref="e16">⁢</mo>        <msup id="e8" xref="e18">
>>  <mi id="e9" xref="e20">c</mi>          <mn id="e10" xref="e21">2</mn>
>>        </msup>      </mrow>    </mrow>    <annotation-xml
>> encoding="MathML-Content" id="e11">      <apply id="e12" xref="e2">
>>     <eq id="e13" xref="e4"/>        <csymbol cd="wikidata" id="e14"
>> xref="e3">Q11379</csymbol>        <apply id="e15" xref="e5">
>> <times id="e16" xref="e7"/>          <csymbol cd="wikidata" id="e17"
>> xref="e6">Q11423</csymbol>          <apply id="e18" xref="e8">
>>    <power id="e19" xref="e8"/>            <csymbol cd="wikidata"
>> id="e20" xref="e9">Q2111</csymbol>            <cs id="e21"
>> xref="e10">the integer number two</cs>          </apply>
>> </apply>      </apply>    </annotation-xml>    <annotation
>> encoding="application/x-tex" id="e22">E=mc^{2}</annotation>
>> </semantics></math>'
>>
>>
>>
>> This was generated by LaTeXML and simplified by the node library
>> mathml following this idea
>>
>>
>>
>>   const m = require('./MathML/MathMLReader);
>>
>>   const mml = m(xmlinput);
>>
>>   mml. simplifyIds('e'); (prefix to avoid name clashes for multiple
>> formula on one page).
>>
>>
>>
>> In javascript your write element.xref to get the xref and you can use
>> doc.getElementById(element.xref) to get from presentation to content
>> and the other way round. How simple ist that?
>>
>>
>>
>> While I can see that element.data-annotation would be somehow less
>> complex, I see additional complexity introduced by the proposals that
>> try to reassemble the semantic tree in a data attribute that needs a
>> special parser. While I can imagine cases where this third tree
>> simplifies the applications we are targeting in some cases, I have the
>> feeling that gathering information from three trees will be even more
>> complicated than from two trees. So as long content-mathml is not
>> entirely dead and removed from any future specs I don't see a real
>> benefit in making things more complicated.
>>
>>
>>
>> Eventually to fetch to localized meanings of the expression, you need
>> to query the Wikidata api with your target language. While this can
>> not localize canonical MathML there is an open editable mapping
>> between the canonical MathML and Wikidata ids exists here
>> https://w.wiki/cGQ.
>>
>> Moritz
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu>
>> > Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2020 1:54 AM
>> > To: Physikerwelt <wiki@physikerwelt.de>
>> > Cc: Patrick Ion <pion@umich.edu>; Murray Sargent
>> > <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>; Deyan Ginev <deyan.ginev@gmail.com>;
>> > public-mathml4@w3.org
>> > Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Notable mention of rich math applications,
>> > "details-
>> > on-demand"
>> >
>> > Moritz,
>> >
>> > I'm interested in how an image in the linked article
>> > <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/E%3Dmc%C2
>> > %B2-explication.svg/236px-E%3Dmc%C2%B2-explication.svg.png>  was
>> > generated. Based on the link name, it seems to have come from svg and
>> > converted to png, but how was the SVG generated? Is there a program that
>> > links the text to the displayed math? E.g, I can imagine something like
>> >    <mi data-annotation="mass">m</mi>
>> > or
>> >    <mi data-annotation-id="someID">m</mi>
>> >
>> > or something equivalent involving wrapping <semantics> around each mi
>> and
>> > having some JS or other code connect the pieces. On the other hand, I
>> can
>> > more easily imagine that someone used a drawing tool to add the
>> > annotations and lines to an image of the math.
>> >
>> > If the former exists, I'd appreciate a pointer to the tool. If it
>> doesn't
>> > exist, it
>> > would be a really cool tool to develop.
>> >
>> >     Neil
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 11:12 PM Physikerwelt <wiki@physikerwelt.de
>> > <mailto:wiki@physikerwelt.de> > wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >       Hi Deyan,
>> >
>> >       a nice example. However, can't we represent that with the current
>> >       MathML standard.
>> >
>> >       For Wikipedia, we have the semantic annotations, e.g., by
>> clicking on
>> >       the first formula in Mass Energy Equivalence you will be
>> redirected to
>> >
>> >       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence
>> >
>> >       or
>> >
>> >
>> https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:MathWikibase&qi
>> > d=Q35875
>> >
>> >       or
>> >
>> >
>> https://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:MathWikibase&qi
>> > d=Q35875
>> >
>> >       and so on depending on your language preferences. Of course, this
>> is
>> >       supposed to become a popup, but the code review did not go
>> > through
>> >       since the js code was a few bytes too heavy.
>> >
>> >       Eventually, we can translate this into content MathML.
>> >
>> >
>> >           <annotation-xml encoding="MathML-Content" id="e11">
>> >             <apply id="e12" xref="e2">
>> >               <eq id="e13" xref="e4"/>
>> >               <csymbol cd="wikidata" id="e14" xref="e3">Q11379</csymbol>
>> >               <apply id="e15" xref="e5">
>> >                 <times id="e16" xref="e7"/>
>> >                 <csymbol cd="wikidata" id="e17"
>> xref="e6">Q11423</csymbol>
>> >                 <apply id="e18" xref="e8">
>> >                   <power id="e19" xref="e8"/>
>> >                   <csymbol cd="wikidata" id="e20"
>> xref="e9">Q2111</csymbol>
>> >                   <cs id="e21" xref="e10">the integer number
>> two</cs><!--
>> >       this was somehow a standard violation to demo clear text in the
>> > popup
>> >       -->
>> >                 </apply>
>> >               </apply>
>> >             </apply>
>> >           </annotation-xml>
>> >
>> >       However, not in production since we rely on LaTeXML, and we can
>> not
>> >       run PERL in production WMF sites. We, therefore, use the 'has
>> part'
>> >       property of the related Wikidata item
>> >       https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q35875.
>> >
>> >       For more complex formulae like
>> >
>> >
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:MathWikibase&qi
>> > d=Q1899432
>> >
>> >       , the problem is that there were missing symbols, thus we had to
>> >       create new symbols
>> >       https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q85397895 with unfortunately very
>> > few
>> >       semantic connections to more general symbols, and no translations
>> > yet.
>> >       Thus these annotations are almost dead ends in the knowledge
>> > graph.
>> >
>> >
>> >       Greetings
>> >       Moritz
>> >
>> >       http://moritzschubotz.de | +49 1578 047 1397
>> >
>> >       On Mon, Sep 14, 2020 at 6:13 AM Neil Soiffer <
>> soiffer@alum.mit.edu
>> > <mailto:soiffer@alum.mit.edu> > wrote:
>> >       >
>> >       > Deyan,
>> >       >
>> >       > I really like the toggle notation/variable feature. I think it
>> is
>> > better
>> > than pop ups for this purpose because you can see the context better. It
>> > is
>> > something that widespread support of MathML will enable because then
>> > people can count on where something is and could do text layout around
>> the
>> > math and have the other end of the arrow actually point to somewhere
>> near
>> > the math symbol/term and know it will work in all the browsers. When the
>> > math input gets converted to something else such as spans, you can't do
>> > that.
>> >       >
>> >       > I'm not a fan of the colorized-math-equations, but maybe people
>> > who see colors better than I do would like it. I find it way too busy,
>> > distracting, and hard to read.
>> >       >
>> >       > To follow up on Patrick's link for Euclid's Elements. A friend
>> of mine
>> > did something for a "live" (colored) version of Euclid's elements where
>> > you
>> > can play around with the diagrams. He published in the Apple App Store.
>> > It's
>> > not free though (it's $6). I've played with it some during development
>> and
>> > found it quite interesting.
>> >       >
>> >       >     Neil
>> >       >
>> >       >
>> >       > On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 12:28 PM Patrick Ion <pion@umich.edu
>> > <mailto:pion@umich.edu> > wrote:
>> >       >>
>> >       >> Thanks, Deyan, for bringing a modern document form to
>> >       >> our attention, and not just for the math relevance.
>> >       >>
>> >       >> I can't resist bringing up a bit of history in regard to
>> >       >> colored math.  A significant earlier work was
>> >       >> Oliver Byrne's version of Euclid (which I saw
>> >       >> in Cork), written while he was Surveyor of the
>> >       >> Falkland Islands,
>> >       >>
>> >       >> https://www.c82.net/euclid/
>> >       >> see also
>> >       >>
>> > https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2008/05/euclid_in_color.html
>> >       >>
>> >       >> Note: it really gets going with Book II in using
>> >       >> colored symbols.  You can buy a copy these days:
>> >       >>
>> >       >> https://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Byrne-First-Elements-
>> > Euclid/dp/3836544717
>> >       >>
>> >       >> David Joyce (https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/)
>> >       >> did his early Java applet-based Euclid with colors in the
>> diagrams
>> >       >> https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.html
>> >       >>
>> >       >> Then there was the idea discussed years ago at a Paris TeX
>> >       >> meeting of using color to indicate, say, for a Lie group $G$,
>> >       >> its Lie algebra as $\color{green}G$, its enveloping algebra
>> >       >> by $\color{red}G$, its representation ring by $\color{orange}G$
>> >       >> and so on.  I may have seen this style actually used in
>> practice,
>> >       >> but cannot recall a definite reference at present.
>> >       >>
>> >       >> All the best,
>> >       >>
>> >       >>    Patrick
>> >       >>
>> >       >>
>> >       >>
>> >       >> On Sat, Sep 12, 2020 at 9:44 PM Murray Sargent
>> > <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com
>> > <mailto:murrays@exchange.microsoft.com> > wrote:
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> Very cool stuff. A less difficult way of achieving the pop-up
>> > annotations of the first link is to put href’s on the variables. Perhaps
>> > that’s
>> > what Bruce and David are doing…
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> Thanks,
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> Murray
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> From: Deyan Ginev
>> >       >>> Sent: Friday, September 11, 2020 9:25 AM
>> >       >>> To: public-mathml4@w3.org <mailto:public-mathml4@w3.org>
>> >       >>> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Notable mention of rich math applications,
>> > "details-on-demand"
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> Dear MathML Refresh enthusiasts,
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> A very pleasing review article was published at DistillPub
>> today,
>> >       >>> examining the various communication aspects of "interactive
>> > articles".
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> In Figure 8 they have a small SVG showcase of a feature some
>> of
>> > us
>> >       >>> here have experimented with in the past via MathML, providing
>> a
>> > short
>> >       >>> "legend" of each constituent of a math expression.
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> Pieces of their example directly overlap with our main scope
>> > (names
>> >       >>> for dot product, integral over closed surface), and pieces
>> are in
>> > the
>> >       >>> gray zone we are currently discussing (q is "the amount of
>> charge
>> > in
>> >       >>> coulombs")
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >
>> https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdistill
>> .
>> > pub%2F2020%2Fcommunicating-with-interactive-articles%2F%23details-
>> > math&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7C416ae
>> > 94ca77c4468495908d8566f4e0a%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0
>> > %7C0%7C637354383352852160&amp;sdata=RlIcBzOkmBNSBBrfnQkMNL9xn19t
>> > JmnhdVCRBXMCcKc%3D&amp;reserved=0
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> They also linked to a nice older resource I remember, which
>> > seemingly
>> >       >>> introduced the didactic technique of coloring math in web
>> > documents
>> >       >>> with colored text in parallel:
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >
>> https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbetter
>> > explained.com%2Farticles%2Fcolorized-math-
>> > equations%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%
>> > 7C416ae94ca77c4468495908d8566f4e0a%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011d
>> > b47%7C0%7C0%7C637354383352852160&amp;sdata=DPD2kOpiBDb6VGEuhjo
>> > pZUKevR9U1vBGnPG3%2FcqLnIs%3D&amp;reserved=0
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> One thing to remark is that this "details-on-demand"
>> application
>> > is
>> >       >>> out-of-scope for our "a11y semantics" charter. At the same
>> time,
>> > the
>> >       >>> application is - at least in my mind - requiring the same
>> "degree
>> > of
>> >       >>> annotation" to be enabled, as the minimal requirements are 1)
>> > knowing
>> >       >>> the operator structure/content tree and 2) knowing the
>> >       >>> names/properties of the constituent objects. So this may be a
>> >       >>> "sibling" or "cousin" application to the a11y/information
>> retrieval
>> >       >>> applications we've been discussing.
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> Something to chew on, and wishing everyone a great weekend!
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>> Greetings,
>> >       >>> Deyan
>> >       >>>
>> >       >>>
>> >
>>
>
Received on Wednesday, 16 September 2020 00:10:33 UTC