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The Law of Conservation of Mathematical Symbols

By Stuart Buck, Esq.

One of the frustrating things about math is that some symbols are reused again and again, as if someone was afraid of running out of symbols.For example: 1. ' can mean a derivative of a function, or the transpose of a matrix or vector. This is confusing when a book refers to the derivative of a vector. Hmm, which is it? 2. | | can mean the absolute value of something, or the determinant of a matrix. This is confusing when transforming random variables and you need to refer to the absolute value of a Jacobian determinant.3. ~ can mean "scales as" or "is distributed as." I'm reminded of Demetri Martin's line about vitamins: "When they were naming vitamins they must have thought there were going to be way more vitamins than there ended up being...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Buck Stops Here on February 14, 2011 (boomark / email).