The opposite of open source software.
Elements of a Lie algebra can (should!) be seen a continuous analogue to the generating set of a group in finite groups.
For continuous groups however, we can't have a finite generating set in the strict sense, as a finite set won't ever cover every possible point.
But the generator of a Lie algebra can be finite.
And just like in finite groups, where you can specify the full group by specifying only the relationships between generating elements, in the Lie algebra you can almost specify the full group by specifying the relationships between the elements of a generator of the Lie algebra.
The reason why the algebra works out well for continuous stuff is that by definition an algebra over a field is a vector space with some extra structure, and we know very well how to make infinitesimal elements in a vector space: just multiply its vectors by a constant that cana be arbitrarily small.
The group of all transformations that preserve some bilinear form, notable examples:
- orthogonal group preserves the inner product
- unitary group preserves a Hermitian form
- Lorentz group preserves the Minkowski inner product
Ciro Santilli's wife, who was frustrated with academia at some point, admires the fact that Simons managed to make infinite money, and then invested back in actual science, e.g. through the Simons Foundation.
Jim Simons in 2007
. Social media feed that forces you to see posts by non-followed by 
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16During the early 2020s, many of the idiotic social media platforms started adding a non optional "feature" of suggesting feed posts by people you don't follow:
It must have been some A/B testing overload that made that decision to try and make things more addictive for everyone. Or perhaps as a way to drive revenue with people paying to cheat the algorithm and boost their posts.
European Union we need you.
Integrating multiple omics, comes quite close to whole cell simulation.
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.
Figure 4. Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation.
Figure 5. Web editor. You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.Video 4. OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo. Source. 
- Infinitely deep tables of contents:
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact