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Shannon's Information Theory, Eigenvector, DeMorgan's Laws, etc. None of those names are meaningful or descriptive. And then the greek letters and made up sym
by krupan 15y ago
Shannon's Information Theory, Eigenvector, DeMorgan's Laws, etc. None of those names are meaningful or descriptive. And then the greek letters and made up symbols. Math could learn something from Computer Science:
https://www.google.com/search?q=readable+code https://www.google.com/search?q=readable+code
- anrope 15y agoEigenvector isn't that bad, it's just not english: "The prefix eigen- is adopted from the German word "eigen" for "own"[1] in the sense of a characteristic description" (from wikipedia) I think Shannon's Information Theory is pretty fair too. It's about how much information is in a message. Plus, Computer Science has it's own grievous names: A* search, B* search, B tree, B+ tree, B* tree. That always drove me nuts.
- eru 15y agoAnd lots of algorithms named after people. Which is fine (we have lots of things named after people in math, too), but not descriptive.
- eru 15y agoMost of math notation is optimized for allowing people talking to each other about abstract concepts to use blackboards and chalk as memory aids. Mathematical notation is always supposed to be used in a context similar to literal programming.