4 ms·
The response from a(nother) mathematician: don't worry too much about this specific advice; it's one guy's convention, not dogma. But do have very definite co
by JadeNB 7y ago
The response from a(nother) mathematician: don't worry too much about this specific advice; it's one guy's convention, not dogma. But do have very definite conventions of your own to which you adhere carefully and faithfully, whether they're this author's or anyone else's, or your own custom blend. As the author mentions, too many undergraduates don't pay attention to distinctions among similar-but-different symbols, but I've seen even professional mathematicians who don't distinguish properly among, for example, w, ϖ, and ω. (I even refereed a paper once whose author didn't distinguish between o and 0 as subscripts!) Don't be one of them!
- seepel 7y agoI agree, I managed to make it through a PhD in physics and I never had a problem. Neither do I recall any of my class mates having a problem with hand written notation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- exmadscientist 7y agoThis, exactly. One other consideration is to pay attention to your colleagues. Sometimes more specific fields have conventions, and it's probably a good idea to follow them. For example, physicists universally* write a cursive v, not the shape preferred by the article author. You should do that too, if you want to communicate with physicists. (*At least in my experience as a US almost-PhD in physics. And yes, it does help if you have to, say, calculate the velocity of a neutrino beam....)