LONDON—The European Economic Community has begun to address the traditional isolation within mathematics with a project to help scientists from 20 countries retrieve information and hold conferences electronically.

The project, called Euromath, has received an $830,000 grant from the European Commission for its first phase. The money will be divided among researchers at centers ranging from the National Institute of Higher Education in Dublin to the Fashinformationszentrum in Karlsruhe, West Germany. The system, which will take three years to develop, will consist of a database and communications system, accessible to mathematicians through regional nodes and maintained by a Euromath Center in Lyngby, Denmark. The European Mathematical Trust, at Sussex University, will administer the project.

One goal of the program is to create a European standard for representing mathematical text. This standard would help researchers get their papers published more quickly and speed the informal exchange of ideas. Christopher Mulvey, lecturer...

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