mathematics

MathSciNet

MathSciNet is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand MathSciNet rather than just read about it. In short: MathSciNet is a searchable online bibliographic database created by the American Mathematical Society in 1996. It contains all of the contents of the journal Mathematical Reviews (MR) since 1940 along with an extensive author database, links to other MR entries, citations, full journal entries, and links to original articles.

Key takeaways

MathSciNet belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect MathSciNet to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of MathSciNet from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

MathSciNet is a searchable online bibliographic database created by the American Mathematical Society in 1996. It contains all of the contents of the journal Mathematical Reviews (MR) since 1940 along with an extensive author database, links to other MR entries, citations, full journal entries, and links to original articles. It contains almost 3.6 million items and over 2.3 million links to original articles. Along with its parent publication Mathematical Reviews, MathSciNet has become an essential tool for researchers in the mathematical sciences. Access to the database is by subscription only and is not generally available to individual researchers who are not affiliated with a larger subscribing institution. For the first 40 years of its existence, traditional typesetting was used to produce the Mathematical Reviews journal. Starting in 1980 bibliographic information and the reviews themselves were produced in both print and electronic form. This formed the basis of the first purely electronic version called MathFile launched in 1982. Further enhancements were added over the next 18 years and the current version known as MathSciNet went online in 1996. Unlike most other abstracting databases, MathSciNet takes care to uniquely identify authors. Its author search allows the user to find publications associated with a given author record, even if multiple authors have the same name or if the same person publishes under multiple names or name variants. Mathematical Reviews personnel will sometimes even contact authors to ensure that MathSciNet has correctly attributed their papers. MathSciNet co-develops the Mathematics Subject Classification taxonomy with zbMATH.

Scope MathSciNet contains information on over 3 million articles and over eight hundred thousand authors indexed from 1800 mathematical journals, many of them abstracted "cover-to-cover". A portion of those journals (about 450 in 2012) are designated as "Reference List Journals"; for MathSciNet entries of papers from these journals original reference lists are included. In addition, reviews or bibliographical information on selected articles is included from many engineering, computer science and other applied journals abstracted by MathSciNet. The selection is done by the editors of Mathematical Reviews. The editors accept suggestions to cover additional journals, but do not reconsider missing articles for inclusion.

See also All-Russian Mathematical Portal Zentralblatt MATH List of academic databases and search engines

References

External links

Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with MathSciNet

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what MathSciNet claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to MathSciNet before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about MathSciNet ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of MathSciNet

In research: MathSciNet appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses MathSciNet in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: MathSciNet is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bibliographic databases and indexes, Bibliographic databases in computer science, Mathematical databases, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for MathSciNet outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study MathSciNet in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what MathSciNet means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain MathSciNet out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is MathSciNet in simple terms?

Why does MathSciNet matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study MathSciNet?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on MathSciNet.