Wikipedia is always unnecessarily complex

Numerous

L4: Comfortable Member
Oct 14, 2009
150
72
Let me explain. Whenever I look up pretty much anything to do with mathematics, it goes straight to the details, skipping over the general overview which anyone skimming would almost always prefer.
Here's an example, Euclidean space:
wikipedia said:
In mathematics, Euclidean space is the Euclidean plane and three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, as well as the generalizations of these notions to higher dimensions. The term “Euclidean” is used to distinguish these spaces from the curved spaces of non-Euclidean geometry and Einstein's general theory of relativity.
In classical Greek geometry, the Euclidean plane and Euclidean three-dimensional space were defined using certain postulates, and the other properties of these spaces were deduced as theorems. In modern mathematics, it is more common to define Euclidean space using Cartesian coordinates and the ideas of analytic geometry. This approach brings the tools of algebra and calculus to bear on questions of geometry, and has the advantage that it generalizes easily to Euclidean spaces of more than three dimensions.
From the modern viewpoint, there is essentially only one Euclidean space of each dimension. In dimension one this is the real line; in dimension two it is the Cartesian plane; and in higher dimensions it is the real coordinate space with three or more real number coordinates. Thus a point in Euclidean space is a tuple of real numbers, and distances are defined using the Euclidean distance formula. Mathematicians often denote the n-dimensional Euclidean space by , or sometimes if they wish to emphasize its Euclidean nature.

Now I'm generally a high-flier and at home with this stuff, but if I want to understand it without spending 5 minutes of my life finding the simple definition, I sure as hell can't be on wikipedia.

Has anyone else noticed that around here?
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
Mathematics isn't simple, why should wikipedia pretend that it is?
 

pitto

L3: Member
Feb 17, 2009
109
73
yeah I agree with YM, also it follows the format of all Wikipedia that have a short description to start, then further details below.

If you are looking at maths on Wikipedia, the best thing to look at are the diagrams and pictures to gain a quick understanding especially if you are just refreshing material you have learnt in the past, but if you have never learnt the maths before I'd expect you need to reed a bit more into it.
 

Caliostro

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 6, 2009
261
110
Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia of pretty much everything. It isn't your school's bibliography.


What you're asking is like asking for the dictionary to only come with words you personally might look for.
 

Washipato

L3: Member
Jun 22, 2009
149
331
I never found wikipedia useful for understanding mathematics, lots of times it give a complete, but over-complicated definition. The best you can do is find another site with google, one that explains the subject in a didactical way, easier to understand and learn.
 

Okrag

Wall Staples
aa
Jun 10, 2009
1,029
655
If you want simple...[ame="http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics"]If you want simple...[/ame]
 

Sel

Banned
Feb 18, 2009
1,239
2,570
[ame]http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_geometry[/ame]

well would you look at that