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The letter ℘: name and origin? (2017)

(mathoverflow.net)
283 points IdealeZahlen | 2 comments | 14 Nov 24 16:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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non- ◴[14 Nov 24 18:26 UTC] No.42139412[source]▶
One thing I've always struggled with Math is keeping track of symbols I don't know the name of yet.

Googling for "Math squiggle that looks like a cursive P" is not a very elegant or convenient way of learning new symbol names.

I wish every proof or equation came with a little table that gave the English pronunciation and some context for each symbol used.

It would make it a lot easier to look up tutorials & ask questions.

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1. causal ◴[14 Nov 24 18:34 UTC] No.42139508[source]▶
Yeah I find that I reason about math in my head with names for symbols - the visual shape is not sufficient for the math part of my brain to manipulate it as a symbol.
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2. mindcrime ◴[14 Nov 24 20:55 UTC] No.42141109[source]▶
Same. If I see a symbol and can't "say" the symbol, I can't (easily) process it. I think over time that gets better and eventually it's possible to start to "pattern match" it just off the visual representation, but at least for me when something is new, I need the "name" of it as something I can say to myself or I hit a ParseException. :-(