One of the points that I don’t think is fully clear from Wikipedia is that this is not just about notation - it’s about creating a limited set of tables that co

One of the points that I don’t think is fully clear from Wikipedia is that this is not just about notation - it’s about creating a limited set of tables that combine mortality and compound interest and which can then be used to calculate the desired discounted cashflow value by hand. As such I think the use of the tables and notation have reduced significantly since PCs first appeared on the scene. Today almost all life actuarial computations are done using either spreadsheets or dedicated (proprietary) software packages from actuarial consultancies which can do much more sophisticated cashflow projections - for example using stochastic investment return assumptions. Might be too far to say this is a historical curiosity by now but not by much.