Math-Aware Search Engines: Physics Applications and Overview

Abstract

Search engines for equations now exist, which return results matching the query's mathematical meaning or structural presentation. Operating over scientific papers, online encyclopedias, and math discussion forums, their content includes physics, math, and other sciences. They enable physicists to avoid jargon and more easily target mathematical content within and across disciplines. As a natural extension of keyword-based search, they open up a new world for discovering both exact and approximate mathematical solutions; physical systems' analogues and alternative models; and physics' patterns. This review presents the existing math-aware search engines, discusses methods for maximizing their search success, and overviews their math-matching capabilities. Proposed applications to physics are also given, to contribute towards developers' and physicists' exploration of the newly available search horizons.