The New Brilliant

Update:

To better organize feedback we have locked comments on this discussion. Please provide your feedback by posting a note to the tag #FeatureRequests. Thanks.

Whoa,

Some of you might have noticed some pretty radical changes to our layout.

Welcome to your new homepage, your river of challenging problems and good conversations. The problems and discussions you see are published or reshared by either:

the members of Brilliant that you follow
the topic feeds that you follow (for example, “Best of Algebra”)

A few of the major changes:

You don’t have to wait until Sunday for new problems.
Topics now include Calculus, Geometry, and Computer Science. Mechanics and E+M have been split up into separate topics.
The topic feeds publish a steady drip of problems written by the staff of Brilliant.org and also reshare excellent problems written by members like you. If you have a rating in a current Brilliant.org topic, then you are automatically already following that topic. You can see all of the current topic feeds here. As soon as a subject—like chemistry, for example—becomes popular enough on Brilliant, we will spin off a new topic feed.

Imgur Imgur

Anybody can publish a problem! You can even write multiple choice problems. When you publish a problem, it goes out to all of your followers and you become the moderator of the solution discussion surrounding it.

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Discussions have been renamed Notes. This is to reflect that these are now conversations that get delivered like notes to the people that follow you on Brilliant. You are in fact reading one now.
You can browse problems and notes by tag. Click on any tag (like #NumberTheory) to see all posts with that tag. You can also tag your own posts so that the posts are seen by others who are browsing that tag.

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Problems and conversations can be bookmarked by adding them to your Favorites list.
You can see problems you've recently started in your Started list. This page is still pretty slow right now, but we'll be speeding it up in the near future.
This is a beta feature and has some bugs, but you can also check out all activity happening on Brilliant here.
Shortly after we launched these new features, Josh Silverman published the very first shared problem. He will forever claim fame...

We believe this format will radically increase the amount of problem solving and discussing all of you can do in a week. More importantly, we believe this will allow everyone more convenient access to the best part of Brilliant: the people on it :)

As usual, let us know how it goes and give us your constructive criticism here, in the comments.

Markdown

Appears as

*italics* or _italics_

italics

**bold** or __bold__

bold


- bulleted
- list

bulleted
list


1. numbered
2. list

numbered
list

Note: you must add a full line of space before and after lists for them to show up correctly

paragraph 1

paragraph 2

paragraph 1

paragraph 2

[example link](https://brilliant.org)

example link

> This is a quote

This is a quote

    # I indented these lines
    # 4 spaces, and now they show
    # up as a code block.

    print "hello world"

# I indented these lines
# 4 spaces, and now they show
# up as a code block.

print "hello world"

Math

Appears as

Remember to wrap math in $ ... $ or \[ ... \] to ensure proper formatting.

2 \times 3

2 \times 3

2^{34}

2^{34}

a_{i-1}

a_{i-1}

\frac{2}{3}

\frac{2}{3}

\sqrt{2}

\sqrt{2}

\sum_{i=1}^3

\sum_{i=1}^3

\sin \theta

\sin \theta

\boxed{123}

\boxed{123}

Easy Math Editor

This discussion board is a place to discuss our Daily Challenges and the math and science related to those challenges. Explanations are more than just a solution — they should explain the steps and thinking strategies that you used to obtain the solution. Comments should further the discussion of math and science.

When posting on Brilliant:

Use the emojis to react to an explanation, whether you're congratulating a job well done , or just really confused .
Ask specific questions about the challenge or the steps in somebody's explanation. Well-posed questions can add a lot to the discussion, but posting "I don't understand!" doesn't help anyone.
Try to contribute something new to the discussion, whether it is an extension, generalization or other idea related to the challenge.
Stay on topic — we're all here to learn more about math and science, not to hear about your favorite get-rich-quick scheme or current world events.

Markdown	Appears as
`italics` or `_italics_`	italics
`bold` or `__bold__`	bold
- bulleted - list	bulleted list
1. numbered 2. list	numbered list
Note: you must add a full line of space before and after lists for them to show up correctly
paragraph 1 paragraph 2	paragraph 1 paragraph 2
`[example link](https://brilliant.org)`	example link
`> This is a quote`	This is a quote
# I indented these lines # 4 spaces, and now they show # up as a code block. print "hello world"	# I indented these lines # 4 spaces, and now they show # up as a code block. print "hello world"

Math	Appears as
Remember to wrap math in `$` ... `$` or `\[` ... `\]` to ensure proper formatting.
`2 \times 3`	$2 \times 3$
`2^{34}`	$2^{34}$
`a_{i-1}`	$a_{i-1}$
`\frac{2}{3}`	$\frac{2}{3}$
`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$

Comments

It's awesome!! Hats off Brilliant team!

A Brilliant Member - 7 years, 6 months ago

Thanks Paramjit!

Peter Taylor Staff - 7 years, 6 months ago

From my brief look at the new layout, I see that the solutions to the old problems are removed. For instance, I remember that there were solutions to the following problems but now, they are no more.

https://brilliant.org/physics-problem/emf-in-the-archimedean-spiral/?group=PH0LhxRSsOYJ

https://brilliant.org/physics-problem/hamming-it-up/?group=jNZDEUfljgTa

I usually bookmark a few problems which I think I might look up in the future. I opened the following problem and like the above two problems, the solutions were not present. I accessed the same problem from the bookmark I had saved. I could see the solution from the bookmarked link.

https://brilliant.org/physics-problem/focusing-a-beam-of-electrons-with-a-charged-cylind/?group=8rAl8yckuAqo

Also, how do I access the weekly problem sets? How do I access all the discussions? At the moment, the layout is very cumbersome, it is very difficult (for me) to access different parts of the website.

Pranav Arora - 7 years, 6 months ago

After staying half of the day on the Birlliant writing posts and reviewing the site I noticed mainly the following:

Quite big resonance on the points/prizes situation
Mild confusion with the new layout
A big worry about the removal of the weekly problems

According to the first point, I maybe as many of you came to Brilliant, because of the prize (which is probably still on its long way to me; I ordred my T-shirt in August). However, I stayed for the awesomeness. The lack of the point system may temporarily decrease the interest, but it won't affect the bigger picture. i'm also sure that Brilliant staff will find a way to reward most prolific students and motivate others.

Now about the confusion. Well aren't we all a bit shocked when Facebook changes its layout? Do we go away when Facebook does this? No. I think the same will stay for the Brilliant.

Weekly problems were both a training and a point source, so with the removal of points they have only training feature. While training I always like to have access to all levels of problems, but concetrating more on my strong positions. Current layout seems to be satisfactory in this view. However, it will be really nice if you'll add feature of viewing posts not only by tag, but also by account. Thus we could view only Best of Algebra posts or Best of Number Theory, focusing on solving already checked and selected problems.

Nicolae Sapoval - 7 years, 6 months ago

Hi Nicolae,

However, it will be really nice if you'll add feature of viewing posts not only by tag, but also by account. Thus we could view only Best of Algebra posts or Best of Number Theory, focusing on solving already checked and selected problems.

We have just enabled that. Simply click the links next to your levels and ratings in the upper left hand corner and they will take to a feed of only that "Best of" account's contributions.

Ammm.. My first impression is rather negative. I think that the previous layout was much more organized (though my impression may change after some time perhaps).

I think same number of problems per week for everybody is not restrictive at all. Problems at higher levels on brilliant are quite difficult to solve and even if somebody manages to solve all of them, I don't think that that would create any intellectual famine!

I also don't think that one should get only those problems which one likes more. In fact by presenting problems from other field to use, brilliant can make him/her interested in that field which is great! This has happened to me and it was really nice!

Also I can't find publishing groups in this layout and I am now confused how to publish material.

I am sorry but I had expected only little modifications to previous layout.

Snehal Shekatkar - 7 years, 6 months ago

Everyone, Snehal is part of the Goldbach's Conjurers Group, so let's encourage him to make more posts!

Snehal, there is no tag of publishing groups. You should be using the tag of #Goldbach'sConjurersGroup.

Calvin Lin Staff - 7 years, 6 months ago

How do I find tags?? When I go to 'share a note', I don't see any tags which I can attach to my note. I can't see my weekly problems.. If I am not wrong, this layout is highly inspired by layout of Twitter and find it too confusing.. :(

There are also Math Circles organized by your fellow Brilliant members!

And so points and prizes are removed? D:

Is there a way to read all discussions and notes from everyone, without regard to tags?

There might be plenty of questions following up.

Ivan Koswara - 7 years, 6 months ago

Ivan if you want to look at everything go to brilliant.org/all. It has everything regardless of tag.

No prizes means no more people on brilliant.org

A7 jack - 7 years, 6 months ago

I don't think many people would spend hundreds of hours solving problems just for a T-shirt.

Michael Tong - 7 years, 6 months ago

@Michael Tong – I do

Cuong Doan - 7 years, 6 months ago

It has advantages and disadvantages. I liked the earlier structured work better, with a new specified set of problems every Sunday, but there are advantages. The new layout looks very nice :D

A few questions (adding more as I have them):

Are there still solutions?
How do the problems I see get selected?
If I share a problem, who sees it, and who can see it?
How do I find other discussions/notes?
Will I still get my t-shirt I bought earlier?
Does my rating go down when I see problems still?
If I want to, can I pay points (which don't exist) or something to see a solution?
If points are removed, why is there a panel showing points in the last week?

Daniel Chiu - 7 years, 6 months ago

I agree with your point: the problems in the last interface were much more accessible. If I am correct, to get the problems, we have to follow tags like Best of Number Theory, scroll down the browser and see which problems they shared. What's more, there aren't even specific sections for Number Theory, Algebra, Combinatorics, etc, so we just have to browse through a pool of problems and select the ones which look interesting. Now that the problems aren't sorted by their difficulty level, this will be even harder. This is definitely not better than the previous layout, where we would have all the 16 problems in our homepage. Wouldn't it be better if we had the weekly problem set system, and would use this newsfeed format to solve the extra problems instead?

Sreejato Bhattacharya - 7 years, 6 months ago

Hey Sreejato – we wanted to become smarter about customizing problems to you based on your rating, rather than giving you the same problem set as other users at your level. We hope that while you're browsing, you'll find that most of the problems are ones that you are interested in. We also wanted members to be able to get problems more often than once every Sunday, rather than limiting everyone to 16 problems once per week.

Suyeon Khim Staff - 7 years, 6 months ago

Yes, I was thinking if a hybrid could be made, but it might be confusing.

@Daniel Chiu – I can't see how it might be "confusing". This hybrid system would essentially be the same as the old system, except that instead of browsing other's profiles for extra problems, we could simply go through the newsfeed format. :)

@Sreejato Bhattacharya – Well, the two systems are very different, one has points, one doesn't, one has different topics, etc, and so some users may get confused.

Yes there are still solutions and solution discussions. Except now everyday is Sunday.
The problems you see in your feed are either written by the people you follow, reshared by them, or from a "Best of" topic feed. The "Best of" topic feeds reshare the best problems of the members of Brilliant. These topic feeds also publish problems problems written by us that have ratings. You are only shown problems within a few hundred points of your own rating(effectively only problems in your level).
If you share a problem it will appear on the homepage of your followers. If they reshare it, their followers will see it as well, and so on...Anyone with a link to the problem could also see it and try their best to solve it, so it is in effect public.
You can find other discussions/notes currently by browsing tags.
Yes
Your rating does not decrease by viewing problems on your homepage without clicking them.
We are currently removing the need to pay points for solutions in all contexts. You do not need to pay points to see solutions to problems in your feed, so long as someone has actually posted a solution.
It allows you to keep your own leader board with the people that you follow.

OK great. Thanks a lot. However, I still have a few questions (sorry for all the questions):

Nevermind I found the solutions.
What are math circles? How do I join one?
Does my rating decrease if I click on it? That seems illogical, since I already see it, and the only thing that happens when I click on it is that I can answer it, which already changes my rating.
So points still exist (regarding the leaderboard)?
When I write a solution, I get the Apprentice tips. A bug?
Can I still submit 2 solutions per topic per week? If so, how is this decided?

@Daniel Chiu – 3)Yes, your rating goes down when you click on the problem. I checked. Seems illogical.

Mursalin Habib - 7 years, 6 months ago

@Mursalin Habib – We will be tweaking ratings over the next few days. Some aspects of it may change.

@Daniel Chiu – Also, will user-submitted problems ever change rating?

@Daniel Chiu – Eventually, we would like submitted problems to also have a rating displayed. It will take a while for us to figure out what the correct behavior is, and to account for various cases.

For example, we don't want someone to enter a problem with a wrong answer, and see the rating skyrocket just because no one can answer it.

It allows you to keep your own leader board with the people that you follow.

How exactly? You don't get points for solving problems, do you? So, after a while everyone's this week points will get zero.

@Mursalin Habib – Hey Mursalin - we are working on it. There are still some issues we are ironing out with points. In the meanwhile, enjoy the buffet of problems!

I totally agree.....

Eddie The Head - 7 years, 6 months ago

I was so excited as i was just a few points short of claiming the book which i think named "Mathematical Puzzles". :(

Anyways, I just Love the new format! Great work Brilliant Team! You are giving math aspirants a great place to learn and improve!

Dhruv Bhasin - 7 years, 6 months ago

http://en.bookfi.org/s/?q=mathematical+puzzles&t=0

Ankit Chabarwal - 7 years, 6 months ago

Thanks for the link Ankit :)!

no points and no prizes thats not good i saved so many to claim a T-shirt leaderbord is also no more..............its quite good but boring this is the reply i m getting frommy frnds on fb and from that i can guess now thre wil be a sudden decrease in number of brillaint users

Anubhav Singh - 7 years, 6 months ago

Both surveys and data have shown that the overwhelming majority of members do not use Brilliant for the prizes and the points. Prizes and points have been gradually deemphasized over the past couple of months as we attempt to setup incentives that better motivate collaboration as opposed to competition.

At least you guys should bring back the ratings and weekly problems by Calvin, it seems hard to find out interesting problems from a bunch, the earlier version was a bit more organized, I can't even find this weeks problems I was working on :-(

Abhijeeth Babu - 7 years, 6 months ago

@Abhijeeth Babu – Ratings and weekly problems written by Brilliant still exist. Click on any of the problems on your homepage from the "Best of" accounts and you will see a problem whose rating is in your level. The "Best of" accounts are designed to show you problems throughout the week that range in difficulty within your level, exactly like the old system used to.

To see the problems you have already been working on, click the button on the left beneath the box with your levels in it that says, "started." This will take you back to the problems you were working on.

@Peter Taylor – Thank you :-)

WHAT TYPE OF INCENTIVES?

shiva raj - 7 years, 6 months ago

I don't think points were just used for competition, they provided an interesting way of building up experience on Brilliant.

Charlie Wilkinson - 7 years, 6 months ago

but what about the leader board....?

@Anubhav Singh – a7 jack also comments same

:) At least I will leave.. not because of points.. but because of ugly layout borrowed from twitter.. Why not to keep set of weekly problems separate??

I was also saving points so that i can get my t-shirt. Now there is no craze that we get anything if we solve problems. I think point exchange should be started again because it will also attract new users on it.

Utsav Singhal - 7 years, 6 months ago

My school asks us to take screen shots of our points for maths homework. How do I find my points in the new format?

That is one cool school!

47k points, just when i think i almost got the tshirt, they remove all the points and prizes.

Sherif Elmaghraby - 7 years, 6 months ago

it is a brilliant layout from brilliant guys.TO THE INFINITY AND BEYOND!!!!

is there no points and prizes on brilliant and is there no chances of them in near future

A Former Brilliant Member - 7 years, 6 months ago

I solved some problems. But It doesn't show whether it is a right answer or a wrong answer..

Anish Shah - 7 years, 6 months ago

This should be fixed. Thanks Anish!

Silas Hundt Staff - 7 years, 6 months ago

It would be great, if the problems that I have already solved gets minimised or something like that.. It takes a lot of space.

@Anish Shah – We all like this idea. We'll try to figure out a way to make that happen.

@Silas Hundt – Thanks!

It's fixed. Thanks :) Enjoying the new homepage :)

OMG! It's really great work Brilliant's team! Combining like social media... Thank you again Brilliant.. Now, poker face, hehe..

Andrias Meisyal - 7 years, 6 months ago

Hi Sir,I like this format but in November I have claimed the Brilliant T-shirt.Will I get the T-shirt or my practice of problem solving will be of no use.

Divyansh Singhal - 7 years, 6 months ago

Where is the "Point Exchange" option ???

Kiriti Mukherjee - 7 years, 6 months ago

there is not point exhange

Jordi Bosch - 7 years, 6 months ago

Wooow, so coool I like this layout. But since this january I have been saving poits for the Brilliant bracelet, I had 18.000 lifetime points and I was waiting to achieve the 20.000 this month . Prizes come back

From two days, I have been working on a problem. (I found it really difficult) And now, when finally I have solved it, I can't find that problem. So, is there any specific way of getting that problem back.

Also, I was almost to complete 50,000 points and was thinking to claim it for a T-Shirt but whoaaa!!! All prizes and points have disappeared. (Although, I will keep solving problems whether they distribute prizes or not)

So, it is my dear request from Brilliant, to bring back the previous layout. Pleaseeeeeeeee

Adya Jaiswal - 7 years, 6 months ago

I think...........

That on the home page, all the new problems must be sorted according to categories, instead of all type of problems mixed up on a single page. It'd be better to have separate pages for each 'Best Of' Categories and from there, to watch the shared problems. The same applies for the 'Started' page. But where it's needed the most is the 'Favourites' Page. I think, it will make the site organised as before.
Plus, I see no harm in reviving the Prizes function. Though most of the users did not claim the prizes, it motivated them to continue visiting the site.
And lastly, I can no more see the the panel which used to show newest discussions on the home page. It'll be good to bring it back.

Hope to get a reply from the staff.

Led Tasso - 7 years, 6 months ago

This format is very confusing and all the things are messed up.Even the point exchange option disappeared.And we are not able to see where to start the new discussions.And what about the weekly problems and points.Please bring back the new format.Its a great request from most of us probably.

I have some questions about the new layout: 1. I solved a question, but my rating did not go up. But, I am almost sure it went down from clicking on it. 2. How do I now look at past problems?

Benson Li - 7 years, 6 months ago

Only problems with a displayed rating will affect your rating in the relevant topic. Your rating will not go down from successfully answering a question.
Scroll down, and down, and down, and down, and .....

I just submitted a problem but the entry form limits you to integers below 999. In a horrific back-change answer to whole number-submit loop I accidentally submitted my problem with the accepted answer 1 integer less than the real answer. Is there any way for me to edit my problem? It is an awesome problem now it's just going to be a major buzzkill for whoever attempts it.

Josh Silverman Staff - 7 years, 6 months ago

Hey Josh – as you probably noticed, we haven't made edit or delete functionality yet for the problems. Can you email the link to your problem and the correct answer to calvin at brilliant dot org?

Thanks

When i did a problem , and solved it correctly , the problem is still shown on my home page and cannot be distinguished from solved and unsolved.....

I think once we solve a problem it should move into a new section.....no one wants to view their previous SOLVED problems

The different topic sections should be more clustered together and not this haphazard

I somehow don't feel it right.......

Priyanka Banerjee - 7 years, 6 months ago

If you go to "Started" problems (the button just below your ratings), you can see problems that you have recently started. We will be working on minimizing problems that you've already done on your main homepage. Lots of improvements coming soon!

Some radical changes indeed! One thing's for sure, it's going to take a little while to get used to this.

Some questions and I'll be adding more as I have them:

1) If points no longer exist, why do I still have a panel showing points my friends and I earned this week/ month etc.?

2) Now you can view problems without your rating going down [which is a good thing according to some people]. Oh wait! Your rating does go down when you click on the solve button. Isn't this pointless? 'cause you can view the problems anyway.

[More questions to come...]

Math	Appears as
Remember to wrap math in `\(` ... `\)` or `\[` ... `\]` to ensure proper formatting.
`2 \times 3`	$2 \times 3$
`2^{34}`	$2^{34}$
`a_{i-1}`	$a_{i-1}$
`\frac{2}{3}`	$\frac{2}{3}$
`\sqrt{2}`	$\sqrt{2}$
`\sum_{i=1}^3`	$\sum_{i=1}^3$
`\sin \theta`	$\sin \theta$
`\boxed{123}`	$\boxed{123}$