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I was trying to search for duplicates for this question: How to define the $0^0$?

But it's very hard to do this, as the search engine seem to ignore the ^ symbol. Searching for "0^0" or "0 0" give exactly the same answers. There seem to exist a duplicate, but it's almost impossible to find with the search engine.

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  • $\begingroup$ This is annoying, indeed. Ideally it would be nice to have the search engine go thru the TeX-sources. May be it cannot have access to those `for technical reasons'? $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Dec 15, 2012 at 22:40
  • $\begingroup$ I can't even get Google to search for 0^0: "0^0" site:math.stackexchange.com $\endgroup$
    – GeoffDS
    Dec 15, 2012 at 23:25
  • $\begingroup$ @Graphth Your Google keywords turn up that question for me as a second result. It's definitely not great, though. $\endgroup$
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 16, 2012 at 1:07
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    $\begingroup$ A very similar question: Search queries involving symbols and/or $\TeX{}$. Perhaps you will find something interesting in other question tagged search, too. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Dec 16, 2012 at 13:29
  • $\begingroup$ Since Google cannot search for caret symbol, you could include some keywords to help you find what you need. Something like: exponentiation "0^0" site:math.stackexchange.com. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Dec 16, 2012 at 17:24
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    $\begingroup$ Heads up, the new search engine will allow this search (I've tested internally), quoted phrases exact matches should help on math quite a bit it seems. We'll get the new engine rolled out to the network soon as we can. $\endgroup$
    – Nick Craver
    Dec 23, 2012 at 22:48
  • $\begingroup$ @Nick: thanks! That change is very useful. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong
    Jan 7, 2013 at 14:56

1 Answer 1

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This search is now allowed, for example you can search for "0^0" or more relevant here since the start of it's latex: ["$0^0"][2]. We'll see how we can improve the "at the start/end of latex" since that `$` delimiter gets in there as part of the term.

It's better since you can at least find it at all, but searching latex we'll need to take a closer look at to see what can be improved - suggestions welcome here.

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  • $\begingroup$ That is wonderful. May I post a small request about LaTeX? It might be wise to discard {} after all. Many people would write $\mathbb R$ and many others would write $\mathbb{R}$. The result is the same, and in fact is the same with $\Bbb R$ and $\Bbb{R}$. Whereas the latter requires some sleek comparison of "equivalent" commands, the former merely requires ignoring {} or finding a nice way to allow stripping them and comparing to the term asked for. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Jan 7, 2013 at 17:25

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