Mathematical Notation
Mathematics is a language with a unique vocabulary, written with a dizzying array of often incomprehensible symbols. If we are unsure of the meaning or usage of a mathematical word, a quick internet search is invaluable. But what are we to do when confronted with some strange mathematical hieroglyph? What does one type into the search bar? This book is the answer! Our goal is to cover mathematical notation commonly used by engineers and scientists---notation a university student is likely to encounter. We make no attempt to teach the mathematics behind these symbols. Rather, our goal is to give reminders of what these symbols mean; from there, we can consult textbooks or resources on the web. The book is organized by mathematical topic, but multiple indices steer the reader to each symbol's explanation. We also show how to produce the symbols in LaTeX and give guidance on their mathematical usage.
Stats for nerds
11recommend
13mentions
12people
2017–2026years
92% recommend8% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Absolutely! Any person willing to study and think can understand the above books. As i mentioned, they cover a broad swath of mathematics and are meant for the general reader. You can checkout reviews on Amazon and elsewhere on the web.
Mathematics can be approached in two ways; 1) For understanding 2) For techniques of usage.
The above books help with (1). Textbooks focus on (2). A very good succinct (< 150 pages!) introductory text for (2) is George Simmons' Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell: Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry. It is available at https://github.com/enilsen16/The-Math-Group
One word of advice; most people's phobia of mathematics arises from not knowing/understanding the notation. It is just a shorthand language which you need to get familiar with. When you come across a formula, just expand and read it out aloud in your own version of easy English. You will understand better and lose your fear of mathematics. A book like Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists by Edward Scheinerman is of great help here. There are of course lots of free resources for this on the web starting with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_mathematical_symbo... and https://mathvault.ca/hub/higher-math/math-symbols/
- > You underestimate how hard the problem is.
It's hrd, but it's not that hard. Character recognition is half the problem, the other half is context recognition - and there's abundant reference material available. I think we'll see 'copilot for math' aimed at AP/college level users within a few years.
It's not something that any human can do, bu something that any human can do with help. The first killer app will be 'I found this formula, please tell me how to read it.' Not in the sense of being a math tutor (although that may come, but simply in the sense of helping students to read it out loud, identify symbols like hats or bars and son so on. Most math books are terrible in this respect because they assume the student already knows all the notation or has someone who can lecture or tutor them about it. This massively inhibits solo learners who can't engage in the practice of 'teaching themselves' by verbally walking through formulae or discussing them fluently, unless they're lucky enough to have found a good reference for notation.
If you are not in the latter group, Wikipedia has OK summary articles on notation; and these two books offer variously concise and in-depth tools to built mathematical literacy:
https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
https://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Introduction-Mathematics-...
- I've found this book to be very helpful: Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists [0]. It's compact, very well organized, and has several indexes to make symbol lookups easier and good summaries of what they mean.
- The rhino book is a good dead tree reference.
https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
- It's not really comparable to the yellow book and its meant as a glossary for an older audience, but I've found Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists [1] to be useful, especially for reading CS and ML papers.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
- There is a good book for math notation that I like:
"Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists"
https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
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