Epiphanie Tutorial

Welcome to Epiphanie tutoring! Our site is designed to help you while you do your homework and practice work. Do you already have a tutor? That’s great! This system is designed to work with you and your tutor and teacher to help you learn when they can’t be there with you. You can even share reports with them about the material that you need to work on.

How do I Use Epiphanie?

You’ve already taken the first step - signing up. Next, start working on some problems! Epiphanie is designed to work with whatever math problems you currently have - create an assignment, enter your problem, and do your work step-by-step in the Epiphanie system. We’ll give you pointers along the way to help you when you run into challenges. When you’re done you can print out an assignment to turn it in.

Our current release provides advice for equation-based algebra problems and some calculus, with some limitations.

On every page there are also links to ask for help or make suggestions about how we can make Epiphanie better for you. Let us know what you think, and thank you for trying Epiphanie AI Tutoring!

Best regards,
Kevin Moore
Founder, Epiphanie Tutoring

Usage Details

For now, the Epiphanie site only supports help with equations and inequalities. Each equation can only have one equal sign in it - systems of equations are not supported yet. However you can still use Epiphanie for problems where youre asked to simplify, expand, factor, or plug in to expressions; see below for details.

Certain functions are supported by the system - you can find them and enter them with the drop-down “functions” menu or type them in manually.

If a problem has multiple solutions, you need to enter this using one of the following two formats:

x = -3 or 3
x = {-3, 3}

Note that many functions will only work correctly if you enter them with parentheses. For example, x=ln 6 or y=sin pi/2 might not work correctly without the parentheses.

If youre in an algebra class, note that the letters e and i have special meanings in more advanced math, and you might need to use a different variable name if your equation uses these letters. (Dont worry - well share a warning message.)

Here are some useful keyboard shortcuts:

^ (shift-6) Exponent (x²)
_ (underscore) Subscript (H₂O)
→ (right arrow) Escape an exponent, subscript, fraction, or other function
Mouse to select text
Shift-→, Shift-← Select text manually to use in a fraction or to copy
Arrows traverse and edit equation
Function →, ← Beginning / end of line
Home, End Beginning / end of line
+- = ±
>= ≥
<= ≤
“\” Allows LaTeX keyboard function shortcuts
- \sqrt square root
- \pi π, the mathematical constant
- \theta θ (not supported as a variable yet)
- \int Integral sign (not working properly yet)
- \sum Summation sign (in testing but not on the main site yet)
- \pm PlusMinus symbol (not supported yet)
Copy, Cut, Paste The usual shortcuts work (Ctrl-C or ⌘-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V)

Examples:

Let’s say you wanted to enter the equation x^2-4x+3=0. You can do this with the following key combinations:

x ^ 2 → - 4 x + 3 = 0 ↵
The ^ key creates an exponent; the arrow key will cause the cursor to leave the exponent of x²
You could also use the exponent function in the GUI to help enter this

Note that you don’t actually need to use the right-arrow key after the 2 in x². We’ve tried to make entering equations as easy as possible, and some keys will automatically pop you out of the exponent or subscript. +, -, and = are three of those keys - if you type one of these characters in an exponent, it will go on the main line (not in the exponent)

If you actually wanted a + sign or one of these other characters in the exponent, you can still put one there but it’s a little tricky. The character can’t be the last character in the exponent while you’re typing. So if you wanted to enter this:
x^{2+3}=32
You would have to type the following keys:
x ^ 2 3 ← + → = 32
You have to enter the character after the + sign first, then backspace to enter the plus sign. We’re trying to make the typical use cases as fast as possible for you, and we’ll adjust this if we need to.

To enter x = log_2(32), you could type:

x = log _ 2 → ( 3 2 ) ↵
The underscore key creates the subscript, the arrow key leaves the subscript
The parenthesis are needed for the log function
You could also use the GUI functions to enter this

Unsupported Math / Future Improvements
Epiphanie is designed to be able to accept any math expressions, but that doesnt mean that well always understand them and be able to help. If youre working on college-level calculus or more advanced math, youll probably find some math that stumps us. Here are some current known limitations for Epiphanie:

Known Limitations (see Workarounds below):

The tutoring capabilities are only designed for equations at this point.
- Advice and functionality for advanced functions such as trigonometric functions, logarithms, integrals, e, and complex numbers may be limited or untested. The Epiphanie system will not provide specific advice on these advanced topics yet.
  However you may find the system is still useful without specific advice on your subject.

THE TOP THREE - Please read these:

All equations must have a variable and one equal or inequality sign in them.
Many functions need parentheses to be recognized properly. We recommend liberal use of parentheses, especially with advanced functions.
Implicit multiplication with a variable can confuse us sometimes. We recommend explicitly entering a multiplication symbol, in particular between a variable and an expression in parentheses.
- 2x(x-3) looks like a function to us and will likely be flagged as a mistake. You can avoid this by typing 2x*(x-3).
Our system is designed to support exact answers. If you enter “1.414” for \sqrt2, Epiphanie will mark it as incorrect. We have ways to handle questions like “round your answer to two decimal places”, but they’re tricky and have to be handled when the problem is created for now. In the future, we plan to have simple options to support this type of problem.
Only one plusminus (±) symbol is allowed in an equation. (When multiple ± symbols are allowed, they will be correlated; e.g. 1±2±3 = 1+2+3 or 1-2-3, but not 1+2-3 or 1-2+3.)
Support for an infinite number of solutions (like sin(x) = ½ for all Reals) is not available yet.
For trigonometric functions, all angles must be in radians for now. Support for degrees is planned for a future release.
In some situations when a digit is entered on a mobile device, that digit will be duplicated. We’re investigating this - we believe it happens when transitioning from using the GUI to enter functions to the Android keyboard on some phones.
Epiphanie is not designed to handle Geometry or graphing problems yet
Word problem interpretation is not supported yet (but you can enter the initial equation into the system and solve it there)

Workarounds:

All problems need to be equations or inequalities and need to have a variable in them. You can do this by:
- Add a variable such as “y =” to a problem where you need to simplify or expand an expression.
Examples:
- Problem: Expand (x+3)(x-5)
  - Enter y=(x+3)(x-5) and expand the right side
- Problem: Factor x^2-5x+4
  - Enter y=x²-5x+4 and factor the right side
- Problem: Change “log₂8=3” to exponential form
  - Change the problem to “log₂8=3x”, so there’s a variable in the equation
- We expect to have support for the answer “All Reals” shortly. When supported, the LaTeX symbol \R will indicate all Reals.
- If an extraneous solution is introduced during a problem, Epiphanie might think that’s a mistake. But if you think your next step is right, you should …
- Continue Anyway. If you think we made a mistake, or if you’re just stuck and want to continue even if it isn’t right, there’s an Answer Option to allow you to “Continue Anyway” and complete the problem.
We know these workarounds aren’t perfect, but they may help you use the Epiphanie system now as we work on solutions and advice for more advanced math problems.