[HN Gopher] A cheat-sheet for mathematical notation in code form
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       A cheat-sheet for mathematical notation in code form
        
       Author : TechBro8615
       Score  : 98 points
       Date   : 2021-09-11 16:01 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | Robotbeat wrote:
       | Do they have this in PDF form?
        
       | antegamisou wrote:
       | See also:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_symbols_b...
       | 
       | http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html
        
         | dan-robertson wrote:
         | Most latex symbols are named after their shape (e.g. \nabla or
         | \Rightarrow) rather than their meaning or just one of their
         | meanings (e.g. \times or \frac or \over or \binom). So I'm not
         | sure detexify really helps that much.
        
           | thewakalix wrote:
           | At the very least, text is more searchable.
        
       | bernardv wrote:
       | This is great. Thanks for putting together and sharing.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | blondin wrote:
       | i thought github displayed latex? would be nice if this repo also
       | included the mathematical symbols.
       | 
       | speaking of that, would be nice if github provided rendering of
       | music notation :)
        
         | nixpulvis wrote:
         | > speaking of that, would be nice if github provided rendering
         | of music notation :)
         | 
         | https://opensheetmusicdisplay.org should fit the bill, though
         | you may need a tool to generate the MusicXML.
         | 
         | I'm using it on my website a little bit, e.g.
         | https://nixpulvis.com/musings/my-sound
        
       | maweki wrote:
       | Some functional patterns would be nice as well. Like summation
       | and product are also folds and there are only imperative
       | examples.
       | 
       | This would be helpful as well:                   foldr (*) 1
       | [1..6]
       | 
       | while this is the shown pattern:                   var value = 1
       | for (var i = 1; i <= 6; i++) {           value *= i         }
        
         | Koshkin wrote:
         | This a very good point; I would also stress that mathematics
         | itself is highly "functional" (in its modern form anyway), and
         | that it is stateless (unlike its representation in an
         | imperative language).
        
         | bawolff wrote:
         | I feel like if you are used to programming in haskell, you'll
         | have no problem with math syntax
        
           | wyager wrote:
           | Math generally suffers from a great deal less precision than
           | Haskell. It's always a treat for me as a Haskell user to find
           | a math or physics text that's truly notationally precise.
           | Only authors who really understand what they're doing at a
           | deep level can pull it off.
        
       | monitron wrote:
       | I really like this. It took me a minute to figure out that having
       | GitHub in dark mode was making the embedded math images
       | effectively invisible. Just in case this trips anyone else up,
       | switching to light mode will make this doc make a lot more sense
       | :)
        
       | Kosirich wrote:
       | I think it would be neat to have a browser add-on that would
       | explain meaning, use and code equivalent of a mathematical
       | notation when user would hover over it.
        
         | Koshkin wrote:
         | Why would you want to have something like this translated into
         | code:                 a + b       -----       c + d
         | 
         | Math, in this sense, is already a language, and what you see is
         | already code. (So, basically, all you are talking about is
         | translation, like, from Ruby to Python.)
        
         | _Microft wrote:
         | That would be difficult. How would it know if _f * g_ is a
         | product or a convolution for example?
        
           | contravariant wrote:
           | Well if it's mathematics then it's almost certainly a
           | convolution.
           | 
           | Although it could also be a mistyped sub or superscript star
           | on f, which has various different meanings.
        
           | gammalost wrote:
           | It could be ordered from most to least likely like search
           | results. Multiplication is more common so put it at the top.
           | People will assume that it's not the right thing and work
           | down the list
        
       | DaedPsyker wrote:
       | Fantastic endeavour. I'm someone who has needed to force myself
       | in mathematics for my career. I needed extra help at school, but
       | had no real trouble in any other class.
       | 
       | I thought I was just too dumb for maths. I came to realise that
       | my problem was not in mathematical concepts which it turns out
       | are fairly easy, but in the language of maths itself and how it
       | is taught (some exceptions such as Strang who is just a wonderful
       | educator). Programming in particular really helped me to learn.
       | That's not to say that certain areas aren't still difficult but
       | reformulating away from the traditional notation and teaching
       | style has helped me.
        
         | Jensson wrote:
         | There is so little mathematical notation to learn though. A
         | typical high school course has like a couple of symbols and a
         | few keywords to learn, that can't really be the main reason you
         | had a hard time to learn math when other courses has hundreds
         | to thousands of words you have to learn?
        
         | UncleOxidant wrote:
         | I'm very similar. Show me a big mathematical formula and I'll
         | have to dig into it for a while to understand it. Show me the
         | code that implements the formula and it makes sense a lot
         | quicker (for me anyway).
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | I am the exact opposite. I look at code written by some
           | analyst or whatever at work, and it's usually borderline
           | unreadable if you ask me. Pretty print it as latex and I can
           | visualize what it actually does almost immediately.
           | 
           | Besides, I don't really care about "the code" i.e. the
           | mechanics of computation but rather the properties of that
           | expression that exist regardless of how it is communicated
           | i.e. it's shape or how it behaves asymptotically etc.
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-11 23:00 UTC)