Paper Reading #23: Intelligent understanding of handwritten geometry theorem proving

Comments:

TBD

Reference Information:

Title: Intelligent understanding of handwritten geometry theorem proving

Authors: Yingying Jiang, Feng Tian, Hongan Wang, Xugang Wang, and Guozhong Dai ofInstitute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Xiaolong Zhang of The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

Presentation Venue: IUI '10 Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces

Summary:

The goal that the researchers who wrote this paper are working towards is to create a system that is able to understand handwritten geometric proofs. It is based on continuing examinations into sketch recognition techniques and applying it to this specific task. One of the key motivations behind the design for this system is that it relies on an intuitive method that humans are comfortable with.

The system will be able to recognize the writing and interpret the symbolic meaning of it. It will have the capability to provide dynamic assistance to the user in completing a valid proof of geometric concept. The results the researchers have accumulated from the users have mostly been shown to be positive.

Discussion:

This system sounds like it could get a lot of good use in places such as high school geometry class or any kind of similar class in college. I think it would help to illustrate the mathematical concepts in a useful, visual manner that most people would be comfortable with. This system sounds like it would be quite useful in helping to teach students how to create valid proofs.

This concept could also be extended to other mathematical subjects such as calculus and trigonometry. It could be adapted for physics and chemistry as well. There are many applications I'm sure I haven't thought of that would benefit from intelligent analysis systems such as this one. I think it would be a wise idea to develop it and extend the idea to its fullest extent to help advance the understanding of young people and draw more individuals into technical positions.