A Coloring Book about Group Theory

http://www.coloring-book.co

by alexberke • 9 years ago

297 52 9 years ago

coloring-book.co

jonmarkgo• 9 years ago

This is awesome. I've never really understood group theory before, but this helps a lot

killjoywashere2• 9 years ago

This is awesome, but can't I just buy the thing?

alexberke10• 9 years ago

It's still a work in progress so it's not yet published, but it will be by the end of the year! Thanks for asking! Until then you can print the PDF for free or play online: http://coloring-book.co/book.pdf

akud• 9 years ago

Are you the author? This is a great idea - I've been thinking about doing this with graph theory.

Here's an example:

https://plus.google.com/+AlexKudlick/posts/MWNRWTRATgA

I've been building tools lately; for now, a graph editor.

Hit me up if you're interested in talking about tools for creating this sort of content, I'd be interested to know more about your approach.

My email is in my profile.

SAI_Peregrinus• 9 years ago

It would be nice if there were a color pallet and a fill tool, so you could color in the digital version, then watch the animations with the colors.

posterboy• 9 years ago

link suffocated? Github has the code but no pdf? https://github.com/aberke/coloring-book?files=1

edit: btw, raphael.js looks good, I wanted to animate trees for a long time.

gldalmaso• 9 years ago

HN should really tag some posts with (WIP).

DrScump• 9 years ago

Warning: on Chrome, anyway, this is a clicktrap from which you cannot back-navigate out.

alexott• 9 years ago

Same in firefox

jakubp• 9 years ago

Also coloring doesn't work, and uBlock Origin kills the app.

softblush• 9 years ago

You can simply right click on the back button and then select where you want to navigate back to.

Or you can click the back button faster :D Clicker game experience helps here.

theoh• 9 years ago

Not free, but related + possibly complementary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11745486

vardhanw• 9 years ago

Any prerequisites? Age or education? Can this be given to high school kids?

jacobolus2• 9 years ago

Try reading it. Definitely accessible to HS kids if not younger.

catnaroek4• 9 years ago

And they won't learn any group theory from it.

enraged_camel2• 9 years ago

Not sure why it got flag-killed. I vouched it.

(The flagging system is in serious need of review or overhaul. At the very least, users should be required to provide a reason, which is then made publicly visible as anonymous comments.)

sillysaurus33• 9 years ago

Nah, it's working fine. You vouched it. That's democracy, and one of my all-time favorite features of the site.

Mods also override flags and rollback the submission time on certain stories, particularly when they're substantive or offer new information.

FWIW, I couldn't figure out how to use this site. I tried scrolling down and clicking around and nothing was happening. Eventually I spotted the "next page" link at the very bottom, but I imagine some of the flags came due to similar reasons.

enraged_camel2• 9 years ago

No, the problem is that if I had not vouched it when I did, it would probably have fallen off the front page and never seen by most of the readers. Timing makes a huge difference and that's why the feature is broken and regularly abused.

In any case, page usability has never been a valid reason for flagging a site. Flags are usually reserved for sites that are grossly off-topic, sleazy, etc. Which again makes me wish flag reasons were a thing.

riffraff• 9 years ago

wait, is the thing in the shapes & symmetry page a dragonfly? Don't dragonflies have a thinner body and longer more separated wings? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Me...

yorwba• 9 years ago

Google reverse image search finds this http://designingflicks.com/images/leopard-moth-svg-1.png which says "Leopard Moth" in the image path, and it does look more like a moth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_leopard_moth

alexberke10• 9 years ago

I wish I had had an earlier consultation from an insect specialist. Thank you for catching that!

amsheehan• 9 years ago

You never asked!

catnaroek4• 9 years ago

A “book on group theory” with no reference to the Sylow theorems, Lagrange's theorem or Cayley's theorem?

Maybe this should be called “a book that illustrates gadgets that happen to have group structure”.

yasserkaddour• 9 years ago

According to the author the book is still work in progress, it would be more productive to raise an issue or make a PR on github.

https://github.com/aberke/coloring-book

vog• 9 years ago

I hope this doesn't sound too negative, but if not a single one of these topics is even mentioned in an outline, I wouldn't have much hope that opening an issue (let alone making a PR) would make a difference.

This would be like asking the Nano developers how they plan to support Emacs-Lisp macros.

In other words, adjusting the title (to prevent wrong expectations) would be more productive than expanding the scope far beyond what the author(s) had in mind.

gus_massa2• 9 years ago

The problem is that the author of the book and the previous comment are talking about different books with a different scope, because each one has a different idea of what "group theory" means, it depends a lot of your background.

This book is about symmetry and group definitions, but it has no or very little details about generic properties of groups.

The previous comment is about a book that no one has written, that is a coloring book for students of a math major in the university, probably in the 2nd or 3rd year. In this (unwritten) book the idea is to study the general theorems about groups, and in each case give some visual examples to color and apply the theorem.

alexberke10• 9 years ago

I'd really like ideas for how to better frame what this book is! The title and how I talk about it can also be considered a work in progress. Please do share your ideas :)

celticninja• 9 years ago

Why do sites still hijack the back button?

tw1010• 9 years ago

Because they can

alexberke10• 9 years ago

It's not intentional

Raphmedia2• 9 years ago

They also hijack the scroll for a hard to see "next page" button.

hpcjoe2• 9 years ago

Showed this to my wife (a math/physics high school teacher). She loved it! Not sure if she will use this in her STEAM club, but it is possible. Thanks for the link!

kafkaesq• 9 years ago

Ha! As it they would allow kids these days to even so much as look at a book that's not specifically designed to help them pass their standardized tests.

mcherm• 9 years ago

STEAM club -- this is an activity outside of the normal curriculum.

hpcjoe2• 9 years ago

Happily not all teachers teach to the tests. STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art Math) is all about trying to stoke interest in these paths. She's holding her first event today.

FWIW: I've seen districts where parents don't care, and she's student taught in some of these. It is terrible, as the kids aren't there to learn, the teachers are stressed out and unhappy, and the parents don't give a damn. The place where she is now is a college prep school. Hard core academic criteria to graduate, not just passing tests. Strong incentives from parents to kids to work hard, though not all do.

alexberke10• 9 years ago

It's great to hear that from you! I'd really like to get this in the hands of HS students. Please have your wife reach out to me! colorbymath@gmail.com

kazinator• 9 years ago

Not about group theory per se, but a nice illustration of some translations, rotations and reflections applied to 2D shapes, which have group-theoretic descriptions (that we can learn about in some other book).

alexberke10• 9 years ago

(I'm the author) I've really been struggling with how to frame it! It has group theory concepts but is really about symmetry and other parts of math. I'm looking for ideas of how to talk about it and frame it -- please share your thoughts!

Raphmedia2• 9 years ago

The small animation when changing page makes me dizzy and almost sick. Might want to remove that and allow regular scroll. The "pages" are not even full height, you still need to scroll anyway.

alexberke10• 9 years ago

(author here) Thanks for the feedback. The idea was to mimic flipping through the pages of a book.

A Coloring Book about Group Theory

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