Interactive Mathematical Documents

Abstract

Being so well structured, mathematics lends itself well to interesting interactive presentation. Now that computer algebra packages have come of age, their integration into documents presenting the mathematics as natural as possible is a new challenge.

XML techniques enable us to record mathematics in a Bourbaki like structure and to present it in a natural fashion. In this vein, at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, we have built a software environment, called MathDox, for playing, creating, and editing interactive mathematical documents. Computer algebra systems function as services to be called by the document player. Specific applications are

– the build-up of context, providing information about the variables and notions involved in the document;

– a package providing an argument why two given graphs are isomorphic or —the more interesting case— non-isomorphic;

– an exercise repository from which exercises can be played in various natural languages (generated from the same source).

Parts of the work have been carried out within European projects like LeActiveMath, MONET, OpenMATH, and WebALT.