Friction of Entering New Derivations

First published 2026-03-15

Goal is to enter a novel derivation e.g., Simple Harmonic Oscillator

What's preventing me from entering a derivation right now?

bug categories

1. no page should trigger a gunicorn error (which prevents rendering HTML)
2. pages that do render HTML should not have errors (including flash messages)
   • BUG verified 2026-02-16 11:50: on page https://localhost/review_derivation/387954 the validation reports "list index out of range"
   • no derivation has all steps valid. There are many errors in the step validation for most derivations
3. pages that claim a feature but do not enact that feature (e.g., editing a variable or expression or step or infrule or derivation)
4. pages that lack a necessary feature for the workflow (e.g., editing)
   • verified 2026-02-16 11:18 need for missing feature: https://localhost/new_symbol_vector is missing dimensions (length, time, mass)
   • New function in compute: List of all non-operation symbols. Used by new feed when promoting existing symbol

Getting from Latex to Neo4j schema via web UI

See Sequence of Prompts for LLM to convert wikipedia or PDF content to Latex for Physics Derivation Graph

UI friction

• Associating expressions with step is awkward - looking through the dropdown is tedious
• Figuring out whether the expression (or symbol) already exists is difficult
• Entering sympy for expression is awkward

Priorities

1. Infrastructure
   • features
   • workflow
   • bugs
2. Proof of concept
   • any derivation,
   • sympy for dimensional consistency of an expression
   • sympy for a step,
   • lean
3. Identify top level domains to bridge
   • quantum-classical
   • classical-thermodynamics
4. Derivations that bridge two domains
5. Derivations that bridge within a domain
6. Named expressions, e.g., Maxwell's equations
7. Unnamed expressions