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0 pointsdoliveira3y ago0 comments

Yeah, imagine making a calculation or transforming a complex formula with words and full sentences. Algebraic notation was a pretty big invention for a reason. For instance, the reason why we use single letters and indexes is so it's not confused with products. Try to write and manipulate the Schrodinger equation with words. Imagine solving the hydrogen atom, it already takes like 50 pages with algebraic notation...

And I don't really understand the "I didn't do math and Greek in School". I barely had a foreign language, but if you're actually learning the concept you memorize the letter as well. You can't understand what a wave function is and then not remember that its symbol is Psi. And if you don't know what a wave function is, it won't help to write derivate_2nd_order(waveFunction, time).

EDIT: obviously we're not talking about stories to teach newcomers, you're talking about writing equations in scientific articles and books with words.

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oscargrouch3y ago

I guess its all coming down to mnemonics, aiding our memories and communicating.

Sure this is the "state of the art", but despite the fact that pure language notations might be even worse, i cant help to think that people thinking like the parent might find something even better.

Maybe something inspired by braille notation or something that is invented while trying to understand how our brain works (just speculating here) will be even more expressive.

I actually like seeing an adult be bothered by the fact that the same symbols that turn science more expressive are also the reason that there's a big ladder for newcomers to understand whats being expressed given its all very arbitrary (someone in the XVI century choose a random greek letter to represent X).

Imagine how much science would improve with more "brain power" being also able to try to solve some problems given there are less arbitrarity..

Aachen3y ago

> imagine making a calculation or transforming a complex formula with words and full sentences

... that's why I said "I'm not proposing to turn everything into English prose. Rather, using (abbreviated) names for variables"

doliveiraOP3y ago

Anything other than a single letter variable with at most subindexes, bold, upper/lower case simply doesn't work in maths and science. And because we only have 26 letters, you do have to go to Greek.

Actually, that might be a good exercise: try doing some moderately abstract equations with variable names such as you'd write in a programming language and you'll find yourself shortening them pretty quickly. We literally do it sometimes when modeling an equation for a new domain: we start by writing words and at the end of the blackboard they already became a symbol.

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