3 ms·

So how would you rename a, b, c, x and y in the quadratic formula? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_form

So how would you rename a, b, c, x and y in the quadratic formula? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_formula It is impossible to get better than one letter variable names here. This goes for most expressions in maths, to make things simpler we just use one letter variables for everything. This forces us to learn that the names aren't important, all that matters is how the names relate to each other. The problem with notation only occurs when non mathematicians start to write down formulas without properly defining what everything is. This is not a problem with mathematical notation, this is a problem with statisticians/economists/physicists/Computer scientists etc who define their own global naming rules where P might denote probability/price/momentum/polynomial time problems etc.

InitialLastName 9y ago
The problem with the quadratic formula is that, without referring back to the polynomial or thinking through the proof, I have no way to know which coefficient corresponds to which term of the polynomial. Here's an improvement on the variable naming: X and Y are descriptive of an overwhelmingly common abstraction, the cartesian coordinate system. They do about the best job they can do. The coefficients (a, b, c) are opaque. It seems like they would be better generalized as (C_2, C_1, C_0) (or subscripts instead of _#), to let C_N represent "The coefficient for the x^N term of the polynomial"). A few extra characters that are acceptable to mathematicians (subscripts are ++good) would make the formula much more readable, and lets us generalize to higher-order polynomials for similar solutions (not that they necessarily exist).
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  By the time you get to math in college (at least past the normal calculus sequence) that's how it typically is done. \sum(i = 1, n) a_i * x^i And other similar conventions.

InitialLastName 9y ago

The problem with the quadratic formula is that, without referring back to the polynomial or thinking through the proof, I have no way to know which coefficient corresponds to which term of the polynomial. Here's an improvement on the variable naming: X and Y are descriptive of an overwhelmingly common abstraction, the cartesian coordinate system. They do about the best job they can do. The coefficients (a, b, c) are opaque. It seems like they would be better generalized as (C_2, C_1, C_0) (or subscripts instead of _#), to let C_N represent "The coefficient for the x^N term of the polynomial"). A few extra characters that are acceptable to mathematicians (subscripts are ++good) would make the formula much more readable, and lets us generalize to higher-order polynomials for similar solutions (not that they necessarily exist).

Jtsummers 9y ago
By the time you get to math in college (at least past the normal calculus sequence) that's how it typically is done. \sum(i = 1, n) a_i * x^i And other similar conventions.