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This strikes me as akin to wishing for mathematics to step out of its infancy and adopting a single notation.
by AlotOfReading 6y ago
This strikes me as akin to wishing for mathematics to step out of its infancy and adopting a single notation.
- endisneigh 6y agoI don't understand - Math is a great example because the notation is bounded across all disciplines of math. Can you imagine if Physics used different "math" and "notation" compared to Chemistry or Computer Science? You don't have to learn a different math to understand different disciplines in the same way you have to learn different programming languages to understand different programs. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.
- tasogare 6y agoMath isn’t written using the same notation across human languages, so it’s not a good counter example either.
- endisneigh 6y agoDo you have an example? I speak another language and am not aware of meaningful differences in math notation in other languages.
- tasogare 6y agoEnglish 0.5 * 3,000 = 1,500 French 0,5 x 3 000 = 1 500 The period thing is very tricky, I often parse big numbers in English are super small ones.
- AlotOfReading 6y agoNotation is highly variable in math. Take a look at penrose notation [1] as example of just how different they can be. Most mathematics books will have a definition section in the front stating their notation choices because things are so fragmented. Good luck trying to read something like Russell's PM without a notation guide open alongside it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_graphical_notation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_graphical_notation