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I'm reading papers on different compression algorithms, with the hope that I can create en/de coders for them, but I never know what half of the symbols or syntax means.

For example, the other day I saw a formula with a curly lowercase f(x), and just a minute ago I was reading something that said D(x) = ([x/2],mod(x,2)) and the X's are strange curly variants I've never seen before:

$$\Large D(x)=(\lfloor x/2\rfloor,\operatorname{mod}(x,2))$$

(original image)

To make my ignorance even clearer, I want to learn things like what D(x) means.

TL;DR I don't have a background in math beyond early college, and have no clue what this complicated stuff means. Where do I go to learn these basics, but without having to spend too much time?

Edit: Thanks dude, but I'm trying to learn how to fish, not be given fish. Where do I learn these things in general? is there a site with a list of all this stuff?

Zev Chonoles
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MarcusJ
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    The "strange curly" $x$ in your image are how an ordinary lowercase italic letter x looks like in the Computer Modern typeface that (due to its use in TeX) is used to typeset much mathematics. It is italic because math typesetting generally uses italics for variable letters. – hmakholm left over Monica Sep 04 '16 at 20:51
  • Thank you! I was thinking it was a greek letter because they're everywhere, but wasn't sure. – MarcusJ Sep 04 '16 at 20:52
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    I recommend you get hold of some introductory college level mathematics book. There might be no list as such, but from you question it seems you will need some exposure to mathematics. By analogy, if you want to understand a language only a dictionary will often not be sufficient. – quid Sep 04 '16 at 20:56
  • The [ ] without the top is the floor function, it rounds down to the next integer. mod refers to modulo. D(x) is a function defined by the right side. Of course, sometimes it will be hard to google these things, I recommend asking someone who already knows. Math is a language, these strange things have meaning attached to them so you can't simply learn the word names etc. , you may have to learn the basics per topic from relevant books. – ZirconCode Sep 04 '16 at 21:20
  • Any paper you read must have inside context to know what the symbols mean. If there is no specification then is supposed that the notation is standard or very common, so reading some books about the topic, or just searching in the web, must solve the problem. – Masacroso Sep 04 '16 at 21:28

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_symbols should be useful for your purposes.

Stefan Perko
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wet
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