On this page:http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/3355/mathematics, Dan Dumitru is listed as the proposer for MSE. I'm very interested in the history of MSE and stackexchange in general. Was Dan an active participant in MSE or was he just the first to jump on the idea of MSE?
More generally, who were some of the most active people in getting MSE rolling? Or was it mostly a grassroots effort?
History of Math.SE in general is recorded at http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/q/7021/79365
The users most active in private beta phase, when the site was just getting started, are listed here.
As his profile says, Dan Dumitru is a programmer. His vision for the site can be inferred from the three questions he contributed to the proposal when it was in the definition phase.
Given the coordinates of a triangle's corners, what conditions guarantee that the point P(x, y) is inside the triangle?
Dan's comment: "This is a math question a software developer might have"
How can I calculate the shortest distance between 2 cities, having their latitude & longitude?
Dan's comment: "this is a real world question, and it goes without saying that it's the arc along the surface, and not digging a tunnel through Earth to get from one city to the other."
Can someone solve [2x^2 + 3x + 2 = 0] for me? [closed]
Dan's comment: "Blatant homework questions should be off-topic, if the OP doesn't prove that he has put at least some effort in solving it and coming up with the right question to ask."
