Mathematics Stack Exchange
Mathematics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [notation]

Questions on the meaning, history, and usage of mathematical symbols and notation. Please remember to mention where (book, paper, webpage, etc.) you encountered any mathematical notation you are asking about.

Before asking a question on the site, please check if you can find your answer in Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols or the book A History of Mathematical Notations.

Alternatively, a textbook or paper usually takes the time to explain the notation they're using; please remember to mention where you've seen the notation you are asking about.

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precise meaning of surd notation

As long as I've been working with mathematical notation, it seems like I should be embarrassed about being confused about this, but... Does $\sqrt[n]{a}$ with $n \in \mathbb{N}$ in general stand for the set of all $n$ roots, or just one of them?…
Alex Kindel
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Maths symbols in other languages

I am a native English speaker, always educated in English. I always assumed that maths was a universal language (well, at least for Latin based languages). But I've now started tutoring a student in Switzerland and am discovering that Swiss (German)…
Lisa
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What does the notation max! mean?

In Koenker, Roger, and Ivan Mizera. "Quasi-concave density estimation." The Annals of Statistics (2010): 2998-3027. There is a notation of adding the symbol $!$ after $\max$ and $\min$ Some examples from the paper: $$ \prod_{i=1}^n f(X_i) =…
wh0
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The big O notation

Hey guys, I have this ex in Data structure course. This ex is about big o notation, and as far I remember It means that $f_1$ and $f_2$ bound asymptotically $g_1, g_2,$ but i'm not quite sure. The question: $f_1(n)=O(g_1(n)), f_2(n)=O(g_2(n))$ Two…
user6163
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Notation to use for operation

Lets say I have some numbers: [1, 3, 5, 1, 10, 8] What is the proper mathematical notation for the following operation? $$ (1-3) + (3-5) + (5-1) + (1-10) + (10-8) $$ Here is what I was trying: $$ \sum_{i=1}^{N} p_i - p_j$$ Is this correct? If now,…
user1728853
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Notation reference: what does $\hat{dx}$ mean, where $dx$ is a differential form?

I'm reading Bott-Tu and they write the volume form on the unit n-sphere in $\Bbb{R}^n$ as $\sum_{i=1}^{n+1} (-1)^{i-1} x_i dx_1 ... \hat{dx_i} ... dx_{n+1}$, where juxtaposition of differential forms denotes the wedge product. What does $\hat{dx_i}$…
Vik78
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Cartesian product as an n-ary operator

I understand that the Cartesian product operation is not associative if it is understood as a binary operation. I.e. $(A \times B) \times C \ne A \times (B \times C)$. However when mathematicians write, e.g. $A\times B\times C$ they actually mean a…
Marcus Junius Brutus
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How to explain to someone if this notation is mathematically correct or not?

I got a question from a friend, who is tutoring high school students for Math after school. The question is basically this: Does writing $f(x) = x^2$ mathematically mean the same as $F(x) = x^2$? I read from other S.E sections that function…
Cecile
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What does spade (♠) mean in scientific notation?

Example: $\spadesuit 3.5×10^2$ The Wikipedia page about scientific notation (permalink) didn't help. Neither did the "Val" template page (permalink). Here's a screenshot of what shows up for me:
Wood
  • 1,880
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What is this notation? f(x)=[x]=the greatest integer less than or equal to x.

I came across the question above. It is a function with domain all real numbers and range all integers. But is this square bracket notation used in general or did the author just use it for this particular case?
Kantura
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mathematical symbol for vector appending

Given a vector $v=<1,2,3>$ I want to have a new vector $v'$, which is the vector $v$, appends with a number $4$. How should I represent $v'$ mathematically? What I wish to have is something like $v'=v^4=<1,2,3,4>$, where ^ is an appending symbol for…
william007
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What does $C^\infty([a,b]; \mathbb{R})$ denote?

What does $C^\infty([a,b]; \mathbb{R})$ denote? I know it's a set of functions $[a,b] \to \mathbb{R}$. I think the $C$ stands for continuous. What does the $^\infty$ mean here?
Red
  • 33
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When to use which parenthesis

At school and in all my math books from school (all the way from elementary to high school), the only kind of parenthesis which I have seen used to control the order of operations (like how the parenthesis in $(a+b)\cdot c$ makes the addition come…
Nikolaj
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What is the meaning of the $\vdash$ symbol?

As seen in the following: $$\large \lambda=(3,2)\vdash 5$$ I looked it up and in logic the symbol means that what is on the right is provable by what is on the left, but what does it mean in the mathematical context? Does it mean "corresponds to"?
Nażysław Zbyłutowicz
  • 709
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Is there a Math symbol that means "associated"

I am looking for a Math symbol that means "associated" and I don't mean "associated" as something as complicated as isomorphism or anything super fancy. I am looking for a symbol that means something like "$\triangle ABC$ [insert symbol] $A_{1}$"…
Lemon
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