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I don’t like the accepted answer here, because it criticises Leibniz notation without explaining what it means – and apparently without actually _understanding_
by robinhouston 3y ago
I don’t like the accepted answer here, because it criticises Leibniz notation without explaining what it means – and apparently without actually _understanding_ it, since the author several times writes words to the effect of “this is nonsense” in reference to expressions that in fact make perfect sense when interpreted correctly.
The salient issue that the author of that answer seems not to have understood, which we here in the land of the Y Combinator should have less trouble with, is the distinction between free and bound variables.
In lambda calculus, variable binding is explicit and denoted by a lambda. Leibniz notation binds variables in just the same way: the operator (d/dx) binds the variable x in the expression to which it is applied.
- zero-sharp 3y ago>I don’t like the accepted answer here, because it criticises Leibniz notation without explaining what it means – and apparently without actually _understanding_ it, since the author several times writes words to the effect of “this is nonsense” in reference to expressions that in fact make perfect sense when interpreted correctly. Did you look at the posting history at all? I think the poster understands what it means.
- lupire 3y agoThe answer author rambled on without well structured paragraphs, but the author seems to have a correct intuition for it, since they wrote that "f(x)" and "df/dx" are not well-formed function identifiers (free variables), but "(df/dx)(x)" is OK (bound variables.