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Math strives to minimize ambiguity, which other fields don't do as much. Non-math fields tend to reuse regular words as jargon (i.e. with specificity of meaning
by overfeed 3mo ago
Math strives to minimize ambiguity, which other fields don't do as much. Non-math fields tend to reuse regular words as jargon (i.e. with specificity of meaning that may fly over the laymen's heads). Social sciences and humanities are most notorious for this, often resulting in non-practitioners not realizing they are out of their depth because they are not looking at symbols from non-Roman alphabets.
- breezybottom 3mo agoThat's something only someone who's never studied advanced math could say. Math notation and jargon can be extremely ambiguous and overloaded. "Normal" has about 20 different meanings.
- overfeed 3mo agoStrives to minimize =/= completely eliminates
- breezybottom 3mo agoI haven't seen much of this "striving". Notation use is largely passed down from instructor to student, and there isn't much interest in the mathematical community to standardize.
- math_dandy 3mo agoCertainly overloaded but rarely ambiguous. Context will determine which notion of “normal” applies.
- breezybottom 3mo ago"Context dependent" is basically the definition of ambiguity.
- math_dandy 3mo agoI guess what I’m saying is that since there’s always a context, ambiguity stemming from uninspired naming is never an issue in practice.
- chongli 3mo agoNo, I'd say ambiguous means "context dependent" and the context is unclear. Pronouns like you/me/he/she/they/them are context dependent in everyday English writing but they're only ambiguous when the context is unclear, otherwise most people have no trouble dealing with them at all!
- johnfn 3mo ago> Non-math fields tend to reuse regular words as jargon Isn’t this the field with a “closed” “set”, an “open” “set”, oh and also a “clopen” “set” for some reason?