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by IIAOPSW 1088 days ago
You should call it d/dx bar.

Anyway, I love the choice of theta because a while ago I came up with a nice notation for sin and cos and this fits it really well. When I first learned trig, it was by way of skipping into physics early. I only understood cos as the magic button for getting x components from angles, and y as the button for y components. So my notation is based on this very literal brute understanding. All the symbols are circles with lines on the appropriate sides.

sin = -O- (should be overbar)

cos = O|

-sin = _O_

-cos = |O

Why did I make symbols for the negative versions of the same functions? Is minus sign too good for me? No. I did it because you can differentiate by just rotating the symbols clockwise and integrate by rotating counter clockwise. d/dx O| = _O_.

The way you defined theta, and the graphical depiction of theta, fits nicely.

2 comments

> You should call it d/dx bar.

Or put the modifier on the denominator so that the product and chain rules are obvious (the modifier only persists on the dx, not on the dy)

It says that in TFA :)