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It seems pretty confusing given that operator D already exists as notation for the usual differential calculus. (Not the most common notation, but useful someti
by rm445 2y ago
It seems pretty confusing given that operator D already exists as notation for the usual differential calculus. (Not the most common notation, but useful sometimes). It may not be very exciting that D{n} = 0 for all numbers, but that's the actual derivative of a number.
- Someone 2y ago> It may not be very exciting that D{n} = 0 for all numbers, but that's the actual derivative of a number. No, that’s the derivative of the function that return n whatever its argument, which also can be written as λx.n or in a zillion different ways. That can be written as n, but is different from the number n. Also, one man’s “pretty confusingly is another man’s “similar things should have similar names”. There’s a rich history in mathematics of overloading the meaning of terms and symbols as long as there’s some similarity between them, for example when using × for both the multiplication of numbers and of matrices (where the former is commutative, but the latter isn’t, barring some exceptions such as 1 × 1 matrices). (See also the comment elsewhere in this thread which says “Mathematicans like to call two things with the same "structure" by the same name, even if it's not obvious how they're otherwise related” (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40327885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40327885)