The Mathist – Intoduction Level

Welcome to the short introduction of the options and possibilities in our loved and cherished web app. Of course, this cannot be the final list, since from the very first day it faced the web’s daylight, our team has been trying to make it better and the efforts are not unnoticed, thanks to you.

Getting started

First of all, it is created for taking math notes. If you just want to check this out, you can choose Guest Access and log in and save it later. If you need a serious and smart notebook, log in with your Google account and all the notes you write will be saved to your Google Drive.

Creating a note

How? The answer is: easily. Press the New note button in the Notes section of the app, once you are logged in.

It will open the editor.

The Mathist editor

Start writing

Depending on what you want to write, click on one of these from the bottom right corner: Drawing (The Mathist will offer you a pencil and an ereaser, for the beginning), Text (use your devices keyboard to type common text, definitions etc) or f(x) for adding formulas. The last one will open our keyboard, optimized for mathematics.

The picture shows buttons for inserting a Drawing, Text and Formula field, respectively

This picture represents the keyboard for the Drawing field when a pencil is selected.

Keyboard

One of the main advantages in The Mathist is keyboard which opens when using the formula field. Unique and recently updated, it is meant to be easy to use and effective. Above the standard QWERTY keyboard, there are two additional rows: one with the numbers and the other with most common mathematical signs. Through this and other formulas mentioned later in the text, you can navigate by arrows on the right. The small button in the bottom left corner offers the possibility to choose between QWERTY and Greek keyboard (lowercase and uppercase).

Inserting a predefined formula

We offer you auto complete feature: start typing the name of what you need and choose the right formula from the drop-down list that will appear. For example, when you type the letter i in the formula field, this list opens up:

Here we choose the Integral from the list and in spite of the typed letter, the symbol appears:

First you are offered to add the limits of the integral, but if you do not feel like it, move through the formula using left or right arrow.

Using Wolfram|Alpha in The Mathist

Once you entered an expression in the formula field, use the Select button and then the following will happen:

To solve or simplify the expression using Wolfram|Alpha, press the light bulb and choose between or any combination of what The Mathist offers you:

Note that what is offered depends on the kind of expression you entered.

After choosing all of them, for example, this is what appears in the editor:

Deleting a formula or some of its content

For deleting the whole formula field, press the red x in the corner of the formula and for deleting part of it, use the backspace button from your device or use ours.

Saving note

If you are logged in, your note will be automatically saved to your Google Drive. On the other hand, if you are not logged in, in order to save the note click on the Log in & save button. Once you are logged in, it will be automatically saved.

Background for the main picture was taken from http://www.grsites.com

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The Mathist & Google Drive

Nowadays, Google Drive means a great opportunity for teachers and students to embrace the 4Cs of 21st century education – communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.

We found this really inspirational and creative pin-board that illustrates some of the best ways to use technology to your advantage in the classroom:

Inspiring pin-board on using Google Drive in education (this image originally appeared on: http://www.teachthought.com/technology/12-roles-for-google-drive-in-the-classroom/)

Lets dive into the features that can boost your productivity and help you seize the day with your students. We promise it is going to be easy and fun. Here are some good practical suggestions on how to use Google Drive in your classroom.

We strongly believe that such technologies will transform the ways we teach, study and work together. That is why The Mathist from now on uses Google Drive to store all your mathematical notes enabling you to organize, share, tag and search through them easily, so you can reach Zen in your classroom. 🙂

The Smartest Notebook

The Leap Forward

We are very proud to present you the new Mathist. It is a real sneak peak into the future, that allows you to easily solve and compute anything you write with a single click!

Here are some examples;

• Simplify any expression to speed up problem solving,
• Plot graphs,
• Evaluate expressions and get approximate values,
• Solve equations and inequalities (with visual representation),
• Solve definite and indefinite integrals (with visual representation),
• Crunch difficult logarithms,
• Find derivatives and much more…

You can do all of this with just one button: 

Why is this important?

Have you ever worked on a problem, that is easy to understand, but just requires too much number crunching? – So did we!

We understand that learning a million new things every day as a technology or a science student doesn’t leave too much time for crunching math. And yet in most cases you cannot solve anything without it.

We decided create a solution to this problem with the help of cutting-edge technology.

The Mathist allows you to focus on problem solving and not number crunching, so that you achieve better results at things you are interested in!

Related articles

• Homeschool Wednesday: Wolfram Alpha (continuations.com)

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas! :)

Me and my team wish you the nicest holidays ever! Be prepared to recieve some nice gifts from us in the next few days! 🙂

Sincerely, The Mathist team

p.s. We at The Mathist really love to express our thoughts with these creative math notes… 🙂

Feeling Lucky? – Total Probability Theory

When Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat studied a problem related to a gambling game they developed what is now widely known as the probability theory.

They were hired by two very rich man, that were interrupted in a middle of a gambling game, to determine in which proportion the stakes should be divided based on the current score.

The formula of total probability is widely used and is very significant in the probability theory. 

The fun fact is that the interest in probability was solely influenced by gambling games throughout the 17. 18.  and 19. century. Only way later was probability studied for theoretical reasons. 

Related articles

• Guide to Game Theory: expected value and independent events (thefinalwager.co)
• Struggling with chance (plus.maths.org)
• Pierre de Fermat and His Mathematical Legacy (math.answers.com)
• What is a Probability? (math.answers.com)
• Total Probability Theorem and Bayes Theorem (jyyuan.wordpress.com)

The Famous Harmonic Series

The divergence of the harmonic series is the source of many counterintuitive conclusions, such as this one:

Given a collection of identical dominoes, it is clearly possible to stack them at the edge of a table so that they hang over the edge of the table without falling. The fun fact is that one can stack them in such a way to make the overhang arbitrarily large, provided there are enough dominoes. 🙂

The New Autocomplete Feature!

With thie new Autocomplete feature it is now easier than ever to write formulas!

To write a formula just start typing its name and The Mathist will suggest it to you.

Using the Up and Down keys choose the formula from the list and insert it by pressing the Right arrow or the Enter key, or just tap or click on the one you need.

For example: to write the root, start typing: ro… and watch The Mathist narrow the choices with each letter. 🙂

To cancel the autocomplete, press Escape or the Left arrow.

Select & Copy-Paste

Hello, Dear Math Enthusiasts

We are very proud to announce this great and very requested feature. As the title says, you are now able to select any math formula and copy and paste it around the note.

To select something,  just place your cursor where the expression you wish to select is, and press the select button. Then you can adjust the handle bars to precisely select only the parts you need.

Note that your selection can span only a single line.

A Quick Tip:

You can also copy and paste between different notes, just as you would expect it work.

Get to know The Mathist – The official FAQ

What is The Mathist?

TheMathist is a very unique social math note taking application. It works on every device, and is free for everyone. You can finally focus on the math, not the software.

Do I have to know TeX or similar syntax?

There is no need to learn TeX or save the notes as pictures, they will always be available to you as regular online documents that you can edit anywhere and anytime. We have built a revolutionary simple math editor, a lot of hours went research on this. Go ahead and give it a try!

Why should I use The Mathist?

Because it is simple and straightforward to use, a true breeze… Because you already take all your notes in digital form and save them in the cloud. Because it is fast and works on all devices. It does not require any software knowledge to start, and is intuitive and user-friendly.

Is it free?

Of course. We at The Mathist believe that knowledge is not for sale and it should always be free and available to everyone. Also the application is never going to be polluted by any ads. All of those features are free for everyone, and will always be, even if they don’t generate profit. We started this project for our friends, they liked it, so we just wanted to share it with everyone else.

Are there any premium features?

We are also working with great people from Wolfram Alpha, the worlds largest computational service, to provide their services right from the app. With this neat feature, the premium users will be able to just select an equation, and have it solved step-by-step and inserted into their note in a matter of seconds.

Do I need to download it?

No, it is online and can be found at TheMathist.com. Just log in with Google+ or Facebook account and connect instantly with your friends who are already there.