Editorial policy
Published · Updated · Checked
Who is accountable
Every page is signed by the Ambient Math editors, one independent editorial team. The editors answer for what a page claims: errors are fixed under their name and logged on the corrections page. Write to them through the contact page. No publisher, school, lender, clinic or product pays for a mention.
Sources, in order of weight
Every page ends with a numbered list of its sources, each linked and dated. The 36 published pages draw on 275 distinct sources in all: 119 textbook, course-note and journal sources, 89 government and standards-body pages, 36 reference works and 31 others. A fact comes from the highest tier that covers it.
- Textbooks, course notes and journals. Open textbooks (OpenStax, LibreTexts, eCampusOntario), university course notes (Lamar University, MIT OpenCourseWare) and peer-reviewed papers indexed on PubMed. Definitions, theorems, formulas and worked methods come from here.
- Government and standards bodies. The Code of Federal Regulations and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for loan rules, the IRS for tax tables and limits, the Federal Reserve and FDIC for rates, the Bureau of Labor Statistics for prices and wages, NIH agencies for health guidance, and NASA and NIST for astronomy and measurement. A rule, limit, threshold or guideline on a page comes only from the matching agency or standards body.
- Reference works. Wikipedia, for history and context. Never the only source for a formula or a limit.
Forums, social posts, calculators on commercial sites and anonymous blogs are never a source for a fact. Where sources disagree, we prefer a textbook or agency over a reference work and a recent source over an old one, and we say so when the disagreement matters.
Checking
Before a page is published, each fact is tied to a passage in a saved copy of its source, and scripts confirm that the passage is there, that every number in the text appears in a quoted passage, and that the same fact reads the same on every page. Arithmetic we compute ourselves is shown, with the source of the formula named beside it. The page is then read against the source passages: if the source does not say it, the sentence goes. This is a check on sourcing, not a guarantee that every source is right, and when two pages differ we say which one we followed.
Dates and updates
Each page shows when it was published, updated and checked, and each source shows the day it was read. Pages that depend on a published figure are re-read when the agency issues a new one, and every page is re-read at least once a year. The changes page lists real updates only: a date never moves without a change to the page.
Not advice
These pages explain calculations. They are not financial, tax, legal or medical advice. A loan formula shows the arithmetic, not whether a loan is a good idea. Talk to a licensed professional about your own situation.
Money and independence
The site carries no advertising and no affiliate links. No source or company pays to be mentioned.
Corrections
Errors are fixed and logged on the corrections page with the date, the page and what changed. To report one, write through the contact page.