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DataPacRat comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

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Comment author: DataPacRat 23 April 2015 03:47:51PM 2 points [-]

That's one of the two possibilities I've found over the past day. The other is ⊤ from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_element .

(I wonder if presenting this idea to an actual mathematician would induce any wincing? Off to /r/math to find out...)

Comment author: gjm 23 April 2015 03:53:09PM 3 points [-]

∨ is the mathematical symbol for "or" (in logic) -- my guess is that it may be derived from the fact that the initial letter of the Latin word for "or" is "v". There's a kinda convention that when you have a(n associative) binary operator, you use a bigger version of it to signify applying it to all the things in a sequence or set, so you'd want a larger one -- a bit like a capital "V".

⊤ is the mathematical symbol for the "top" element of a Boolean algebra; maybe more generally of a lattice. You wouldn't use it to mean "maximum of these things" in general.