Mathematics is a lingo and notations are mostly convention. Luckily people generally follow the same conventions, so my best advice if you want to learn about a

Mathematics is a lingo and notations are mostly convention. Luckily people generally follow the same conventions, so my best advice if you want to learn about a specific topic is to work through the introductory texts! If you want to learn calculus find an introductory college text. Statistics? There are traditional textbooks like Introduction to Statistical Learning. The introductory texts generally do explain notation which may become assumed knowledge for more advanced texts, or as you seem to be wanting to read, academic papers. If those texts are still too difficult, then maybe move down to highschool text first. Think about it this way. A scientist, wanting to communicate his ideas with fellow academics, is not going to spend more than half the paper on pedantics and explaining notations which everyone in their field would understand. Else what is the purpose of creating the notations? They might as well write their formulas and algorithms COBOL style! Ultimately mathematics, like most human-invented languages, is highly tribal and has no fixed rules. And I believe we are much richer for it! Mathematicians constantly invent new syntax to express new ideas. If there was some formal reference they had to keep on hand every time they need to write an equation that would hamper their speed of thought and creativity. How would one even invent something new if you need to get the syntax approved first! TL;DR: Treat math notation as any other human language. Find some introductory texts on the subject matter you are interested in to be "inducted" into the tribe