Mathematical notation.

[Derek Harkness]

I was just reading the article on [[Prime Number Theorem]]. While I have an engineering degree and so studied maths to a moderately high level, there are a couple of symbols that I either don't know, or used to know but have now forgotten. Since no name is given for the symbol, I can't look it up directly so I wondered if there is the opportunity to make a catalog page of [[Mathematical notation]] that could be used as a cheat sheet.

Additional, such a catalog could link to more in depth articles on some of the symbols, for example, I know there is an interesting history behind the = sign that could make good reading.

[gerg]

Can you be specific about the notational barriers you encountered, either here or on the article's discussion page? It could be that there's a more transparent way to express the same things without the notation.

[Catherine Woodgold]

I've been wondering too whether it would be a good idea to have a Citizendium article with a list of mathematical notation and their definitions, and maybe another similar page with definitions of math words.

But I think somewhere in Citizendium policy it says words should be defined in the article to make the article self-contained.

I think we need to check through the math articles and look for symbols people might not know, and use footnotes or stuff in parentheses or links or whatever to help remind or tell people what those things mean.

Maybe each article could have its own little glossary at the bottom.

[Derek Harkness]

It is normal practice to write definitions in words prior to notation. To just jump into the notation without defining the letters and sybols used can lead to confusion. For example "Where p is a prime number in the set of all possible prime numbers P then..." should preced the first use of the notation p∈P.