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Show HN: ArXiv papers, explained like you're five

elixiv.org

4 points by luisgnet a year ago · 0 comments · 1 min read

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Hey everyone,

A few weeks ago, I was struggling to make my way through a somewhat dry arXiv paper, and over the holiday break, decided to tackle a quick prototype / idea I had for a website where you:

1. Can open any arXiv document by modifying its arXiv URL (arxiv.org/... -> elixiv.org/...)

2. Can scroll through the document and click a sentence

3. See the sentence on the sidebar, explained like you're 5 (or 3, or 10, ... or 0)

4. Can mark a sentence as "understood" to keep going going through the document

I think I ended up with a prototype that's actually pretty fun to play with, leading to some useful summaries that make reading an arxiv paper feel much more casual. (Or alternatively, you can get some pretty funny summaries if you set the age to 0 or 10).

The demo doc (linked) is completely free to play with, no login / signup required. Any other arxiv doc currently requires signing in with google and you'll get 3 free docs per month.

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