slicko comments on Innate Mathematical Ability - Less Wrong

40 Post author: JonahSinick 18 February 2015 11:11AM

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Comment author: IlyaShpitser 20 February 2015 03:25:36PM *  1 point [-]

Seconding this, weird notation makes many folks lose morale easily. I guess one watershed moment comes when, having conquered enough notation in specific cases, one realizes it's just a formal symbol pushing game in general, and then new weird looking notation doesn't cause a morale crisis.

Novel math papers often just invent new notation as they go.

Comment author: slicko 28 February 2015 10:22:44PM 0 points [-]

I'm reminded of Graham's number (g notation) as an example where new notation (kind of) was invented for the purposes of a math paper.

I read a riveting blog post a few months ago introducing several concepts and building up to graham's number in a very accessible read if anyone's interested:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/11/1000000-grahams-number.html