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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: 0.429s | source
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wduquette ◴[14 Nov 24 19:06 UTC] No.42139909[source]▶
I left college with a math degree and a profound antipathy for weird cursive symbols. The one that nearly killed me was the Greek "xi". I couldn't pronounce it, and I couldn't write it with any fluency, and in some of the classes I took it was everywhere.
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1. evan_piermont ◴[15 Nov 24 08:28 UTC] No.42144929[source]▶
There is a famous anecdote [0] about Barry Mazur coming up with the worst notation possible at a seminar talk in order to annoy Serge Lang. Mazur defined Ξ to be a complex number and considered the quotient of the conjugate of Ξ and Ξ. (Click link to view 8 lines on top of each other)

[0] https://mathoverflow.net/questions/18593/what-are-the-worst-...

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2. shoo ◴[15 Nov 24 09:57 UTC] No.42145418[source]▶
Paul Vojta p546 http://www.ams.org/notices/200605/fea-lang.pdf