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> but also always horribly written by students/teachers, and made it even more incomprehensible. Honest question: why does the horribly written matter at all?
by diffeomorphism 7y ago
> but also always horribly written by students/teachers, and made it even more incomprehensible.
Honest question: why does the horribly written matter at all? For all intents and purposes the symbol could be a smiley face or a little drawing of a tree. Indeed, in a freshman course you sometimes have at least one worksheet using trees,cars,stars, apples to make this point. As long as the smiley on page 1 and the smiley on page 3 look the same you are fine.
Same for mu, nu, kappa, rho. They could just be written as C1,C2,C3,C4, but it makes it much easier to read when you use the Greek letters, because you can be reasonably certain that for example rho has something to do with a density (while C4 tells you nothing).
- macintux 7y agoSome (maybe most) people find it easier to remember and comprehend things they can vocalize, so using an inscrutable character, even consistently, can cause problems.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoGreek letters have simpler vocalisations than "c4" or whatever, though?! This relates to internal vocalisation, a subject on HN a couple of times recently, as I don't really do that (particularly for equations) then it was never an issue for me. Though at 15 I learnt the Greek alphabet as I was into physics, that probably helped. People who need to vocalise to read, and don't bother learning (or coming up with) a vocalisation are going to find it very difficult.