Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bonoboTP 9 days ago
I've had quite some success during my CS BSc math classes with inventing/using verbose but clearer notation and rewriting things more explicitly, programming things up, playing with Mathematica etc.

For example, Fourier is more clear to me as: F{t -> sin(t)} = omega -> (...) instead of F(sin(t)) = (...). Or D{x -> x^2}(x) = 2x instead of (x^2)' = 2x

Abuse of notation is very common, like using f(x) both as the function and as the return value at some input x etc. For example, the chain rule is often notated in a way that hides a lot. Math uses so many single letter variables, uses huge formulas instead of factoring out parts and using multiple lines, math people don't seem to appreciate namespaces and dislike nested variable scoping etc.

It's not magic that makes everything super easy, but it helps.