about mathwords • history of the website • about the author • dedication and acknowledgements • bibliography

History of the Mathwords Website

Summer 2006: I have been making spot corrections/improvements to selected entries, mostly responding to user suggestions. More substantial upgrading has been delayed by the process of relocating to the Portland, Oregon area and starting my new job here.

July 2005: The summer overhaul continues. I now have included subject area index listings, as well as an index of all entries that include multimedia elements. At the same time, I am continuing revisions of individual entries. I am prioritizing entries that receive the most hits.

June 2005: It's a busy month. I tweaked the look of the website, putting margins on both sides of the page. I move the search box to a better location. I put the index tabs in a box instead of stretched out all in a line. This allows visitors with low-resolution monitors can see all the index tabs on one page, and this gives me room to explain to the non-web savvy visitor that clicking on a letter will reveal index listings.

June 2005: Although I've known how to do it for a year, I finally implement a cascading style sheet for the index pages. It lets me list more entries per page without sacrificing readability, and it gives the entries that cool rollover color change which I love so much. I also get rid of all the little boxes.

June 2005: I include a few entries using LiveGraphics3D, which allows those with Java-enabled browsers to rotate three-dimensional objects. Initially the only entries with this feature are the platonic solids.

June 2005: I include ads for the first time. I pondered this for a long time before implementing them. The ads are there because running Mathwords has always been a money-losing experience. I hope that this is a low-impact way to make back all the money I have spent on software, web-hosting fees, and licensing fees (well over $1000) and maybe generate a little income as well. I am continuing to upgrade the examples that are sometimes hard to read.

April 2005: I made an icon that will show on users' favorites/bookmarks menu next to the name of the site. The icon is a tiny version of the Möbius strip image found at the top of every page.

April 2005: The site is named to the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC) monthly "Digital Dozen" list. This is a list of what the ENC folks say are exemplary websites for math and science education.

December 2004: The site starts getting recognition. It is honored in a couple of National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) publications.

July 2004-present: I am slowly upgrading the hard-to-read text and formulas in some of the examples as well as replacing some of the three-dimensional art with higher quality renderings. The original typesize and formatting of the text in many of the examples looked great in the print edition but leaves a lot to be desired in the online version. In addition, I have been learning to use LaTeX to render webpage formulas that look a lot better than the older versions. This process will likely continue on and off until the end of 2005.

June 2004: After 5 months, I finish the definition-to-definition internal links. I also figure out how to include an internal Google™ search.

January 2004: Three years later, I finally get around to revising the look of my site. Now it should be much easier to add multimedia and to make future revisions. I begin to include internal site links from definition to definition; this is a very long process.

Summer 2001: I can't find a publisher, but I never looked all that hard for one anyway. I give up on getting the print edition published; I just want people to use my work.

January 2001: www.mathwords.com hits the web for the first time. I'm not happy with the formatting, but I will surely revise its look in a few months.

Fall 2000: I work on a web version of my book. The domain www.help.com isn't available, of course, but www.mathwords.com is. Well, that's now the name of my site.

August 2000: I self-publish as a book called "Help! The Math Reference Guide."

June and July 2000: Final polishing and revisions.

Summer 1999: Revisions and rewrites. I start adding examples and graphics.

August 1998: At 200 pages so far, it's too long for a handout. Whatever it is, it's only a first draft. No time to work on it until next summer.

June 1998: I began writing a handout of commonly used math formulas for my Precalculus and Calculus students.