July 7, 2026
Algebra’s search party
Ask HN: Where are the good search engines for mathematical formulas?
Math fans begged for a formula search hero, and the comments instantly picked favorites
TLDR: A user asked where to find a decent search engine for math formulas after several options were offline or gave junk results. The community quickly rallied around Wolfram Alpha, with a few wildcard suggestions, turning the thread into a mini roast of how broken formula search still feels.
A frustrated user showed up asking what should have been a simple question: where do you search for math formulas without falling into a digital graveyard? The mood was instantly relatable. One site was reportedly offline, another gave hilariously wrong results, and a third looked like a museum of abandoned projects. For anyone who has ever typed a problem into a search box and gotten nonsense back, this thread had big "is it really this bad?" energy.
And then the comment section did what comment sections do best: it turned into a fast, chaotic recommendation war. The biggest winner was clearly Wolfram Alpha, which got the kind of repeat mentions that feel less like advice and more like a crowd chant. One person simply dropped "Wolfram Alpha" with zero extra explanation, which somehow made it even funnier — like, why are we still pretending there are other options? Another commenter tossed in "Claude" as a curveball, hinting that maybe people are now treating chatbots like universal search engines for everything, including equations.
There was also a more niche flex from the crowd: if a formula creates a number pattern, search it on OEIS, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Translation for normal humans: if your math spits out a list of numbers, there is apparently a super-fan database for that. The funniest part of the whole thread is the vibe: half rescue mission, half quiet roast of how weirdly bad formula search still is in 2026.
Key Points
- •The post asks where good search engines for mathematical formulas can be found.
- •The author reviewed approach0.xyz and reports that it is offline.
- •The author reviewed searchonmath.com and says it returned irrelevant results.
- •The post gives an example in which searching for "F = m a" produced results such as "p = m v" on searchonmath.com.
- •The author describes search.mathweb.org as a collection of abandoned projects and offline sites.