MathWorld Headline News

Special Functions Web Site Unveiled

By Eric W. Weisstein

October 13, 2001--Today, Wolfram Research unveiled the Mathematical Functions website, functions.wolfram.com. This website provides the mathematical and scientific communities with the world's single most comprehensive resource about mathematical functions. Its vast collection of formulas, currently totaling in excess of 37,000, was assembled and verified using the powerful features of Wolfram Research's technical computing system Mathematica.

All formulas on the website are available not only in Mathematica format but also in MathML, the emerging standard for math on the internet. In fact, functions.wolfram.com is now the single largest collection of MathML formulas on the internet, a distinction made possible by Mathematica's powerful MathML-handling capabilities. Mathematica notebooks and PDF documents containing all the information at functions.wolfram.com are also available for download.

The website was conceived by Stephen Wolfram, noted scientist and chief architect of the Mathematica system, who also directed the website's development. The content and organization of this monumental undertaking were researched and developed by Michael Trott and Oleg Marichev of Wolfram Research, with assistance from a number of other developers at the company.

The Mathematical Functions website will continue to be improved and expanded over time, and a sophisticated and unprecedented search capability is currently being developed to aid in locating formulas based on their structural properties. Together with the MathWorld web site, functions.wolfram.com reflects Wolfram Research's continuing commitment to provide state-of-the-art online technical information as part of its Mathematica Resource Library.