So You Want to Ask a Question...

John Baez

My webpage prompts lots of questions about math and physics. If you have a question, instead of emailing me about it, I hope you post it to a usenet newsgroup, like:

• sci.math
• sci.physics

• sci.math.research
• sci.physics.research

There are various reasons:

• If you ask your question on that newsgroup, more people will answer it. You won't just get my answer: you'll probably get answers from lots of people!

• If you ask your question on that newsgroup, more people will see the answers. Not only you will learn stuff: everyone reading the newsgroup will!

• Newsgroups are communities of people who like to discuss various specific topis. If you ask your questions there, instead of emailing someone, you help build those communities!

• Finally: if I answered physics questions by email, it would soon become a full-time job. Right now I'm trying to find time to write a book.

A usenet newsgroup is not a mailing list, and you don't subscribe to it. A good internet service provider will make it easy to read and post articles to usenet newsgroups. But you can also do it using the web. Perhaps the easiest way is to use this. There are probably lots of other companies that provide this service for free, too.

For general information on usenet, try this.

If you mainly want to read newsgroup articles, this database is the quickest way.

If you want to look smart, there are a couple of things you can do before posting your question to a newsgroup:

• Try reading the Physics FAQ and Math FAQ to see if your question has already been answered there. It's surprisingly likely, unless you're a real expert.

• Then try looking at the sci.physics.research archive, or this even more complete database, and this similar database for sci.math.research. These form an immense repository of wisdom. Almost everything you can imagine asking about math and physics has already been answered here! Of course, this shouldn't keep you from asking again. But it's good to see what people have already said.

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