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submitted 2 months ago by Maven@lemmy.zip to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev

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[-] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 months ago

Bruh how large should our notebook pages be? Also how should we speak about the equation? What if the terms should be represented in a matrix? What if mathematical functions e^x, sin, ln etc. are present? Would you write sine of e^(velocity of the particle B) ? Notations are necessary for readability

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago

I don't know what to tell you. They obliterate readability for me.
I also genuinely believe these shorthands hinder access to research for the 99.9% of humanity who are not experts in the given field. Obviously, you do need to understand the context to use a formula correctly, but that also becomes harder when everything is written with hieroglyphs.
In university, I had to assess this paper. It took me 3 weeks to decipher that alien language, and it doesn't even say anything particularly riveting.

To address your points:

I'm hoping that at least published math can be typed out with full names.
I'm not opposed to local aliases. E.g. if the point is that some values in the matrix are negative and others not, then absolutely write "with air_resistance as 'a', the catapultation matrix is { a, -a, -a, ... }".
I don't actually want to introduce spaces into variable names, that's just an example I randomly found online. I was rather thinking e.g. sine(euler^velocity_b).
Bonus point: You can reasonably type it on a computer, because you don't need Greek letters and subscripts anymore.

[-] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

Btw i am all for local aliases. I see them most of the times.

i.e, [equation], where a = area of the surface, v= velocity,...

But without short codes it would be a pain to write and remember. Some of the shortening like del operator really reallh simplifies the original expression with better showcase of physical meaning, but looks alien to people who don't know. But we can't stop using it since it makes everything else difficult for people in that area

[-] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

You only have to define it once in a document, book, whatever. Also, it's not like you'd ever need to do this for handwritten notes, only for a wider audience, or if you intend for something to be read by not just you.

No one is suggesting you don't use symbols, just that you define them, and not assume the reader uses the same symbols as you. Which, so often, they don't. (How many different ones have you come across just in highschool and uni. I came across multiple)

I'm no physicist, but surely there is a huge range of symbols for the same thing, especially the more niche you get.

[-] littlewonder@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm not a mathematician, but I agree with you because this is precisely how one would abbreviate repeating terms in a paper (e.g. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) are both located in New York, New York (colloquially, New York City, or NYC). While MoMA has an art collection of about 200,000 pieces, The Met houses 1.5 million works of art.)

[-] reinei@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Welcome to Greece! No, not our modern Greece, the old timey write philosophical questions into the dirt with sticks and argue with your best homies about it kind of Greece!

Want to compute something? Hope you got all your steps in linear order so you don't have to remember too much in between other steps!

/s (but not really so I totally am on your side, original formulations of math problems are a pain...)