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> Now I learn that there isn't one thing to learn but a vast array? No thanks. I had this apparently romantic view that an equation is an equation (the same equ

by remus 9y ago

> Now I learn that there isn't one thing to learn but a vast array? No thanks. I had this apparently romantic view that an equation is an equation (the same equation) anywhere in the world. It's not as bad as that! You're very unlikely to hit this sort of issue until you're reading research papers (unless you decide you're very interested in mathematical history). Pretty much all the material youll come across up to ~undergrad level will use very, very similar notation.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
The first alternate notation I think in maths, I used was dot (period) notation for scalar multiplication. Next would be different versions of standard form (aka engineering notation). Later, at high-school (UK, 16-18yo) we used both d/dx type notation for differentiation and x-dot (a dot above the letter for each level of differentiation). There would be 3 versions of x= ut + (at^2)/2 that we'd know, this one, d/dx, and dot-notation; primarily the former was used in physics and the latter in maths. We'd also use suffixed numbering, u_0, u_1 on occasions and use u, v, w on other occasions. One important point - they're not different equations, just written differently. You write for your audience, in an advanced paper you can abbreviate and use shorthand because you know the reader (in general) will understand. As an undergrad I found that each department I studied in would tend to use different notation - chemistry, ecology, maths, physics, computing - for the same things. Though sometimes different professors would buck the trend ... they also had different accents and vocabulary, our QFT professor loved the word recapitulation. You also get different symbol use, like rho for density in one domain and d in another; but that's not really notation per se. TL;DR sometimes you come across different notation earlier. Different notation doesn't change the equation.
bzbarsky 9y ago
There are at least three different commonly used notations I'm aware of for division.... And that's not counting the long division process, for which I'm aware of at least two different notations (usage varies by country).

by remus 9y ago

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

The first alternate notation I think in maths, I used was dot (period) notation for scalar multiplication. Next would be different versions of standard form (aka engineering notation). Later, at high-school (UK, 16-18yo) we used both d/dx type notation for differentiation and x-dot (a dot above the letter for each level of differentiation). There would be 3 versions of x= ut + (at^2)/2 that we'd know, this one, d/dx, and dot-notation; primarily the former was used in physics and the latter in maths. We'd also use suffixed numbering, u_0, u_1 on occasions and use u, v, w on other occasions. One important point - they're not different equations, just written differently. You write for your audience, in an advanced paper you can abbreviate and use shorthand because you know the reader (in general) will understand. As an undergrad I found that each department I studied in would tend to use different notation - chemistry, ecology, maths, physics, computing - for the same things. Though sometimes different professors would buck the trend ... they also had different accents and vocabulary, our QFT professor loved the word recapitulation. You also get different symbol use, like rho for density in one domain and d in another; but that's not really notation per se. TL;DR sometimes you come across different notation earlier. Different notation doesn't change the equation.

bzbarsky 9y ago

There are at least three different commonly used notations I'm aware of for division.... And that's not counting the long division process, for which I'm aware of at least two different notations (usage varies by country).