Recent content by töff

That Wiki page raises more questions than answers, and anyway it's not what I had in mind. But thanks for the link. I do appreciate your effort. Like I said, I have conceded defeat on the matter.

I fail to see the analogy. In fact I believe I have failed to communicate just about completely. *sigh* And I call myself a writer. HAH!

Oh God yes they have, from the Phoenicians through the Greeks and Hebrews, Shin to Sigma to S, all the Roman capitals, the Cyrillic alphabet, even the Cherokee syllabary ... there are histories of western writing systems, books about typefaces and letterforms, calligraphy manuals, analyses of...

Evidently. As enlightening as this all is, it is also frustrating. So as long as I get my meaning across, it doesn't matter how I spell and punctuate my formulae? language and music have rules for writing, but math has no rules as long as the reader interprets my notation correctly? See...

I still keep expecting somebody to say, "Well there's a Reference Of Mathematical Notation by Joe Bloe at [some URL] and Amazon.com has the Compleat Dictionary Of Math Symbols & Their Usages for sale for $9.99."

True! and the same applies to language, as portrayed wonderfully by George Orwell's "Newspeak" in 1984. That was a double-plus-good book!

Yeh but apparently there is no list whatsoever, except the briefest of lists of what each symbol means, which is tantamount to a chart of the alphabet with the sounds each letter makes. Where, for example, has anybody ever described how upper & lower limits can be specified or omitted/implied...

So all of these "common usages" and "common shorthands" are passed down by word of mouth? or at best written singly in scattered explanatory texts, but not compiled somewhere? I see a trend emerging. That is a matter of rhetoric, which I grant is open to a lot of subjectivity, interpretation...

But, stuff like this ... Where are those rules recorded?

I will examine this book. Thank you! I've found "how to write math into sentences for papers" guidelines on the web. It's not entirely what I was after. Still, thanks for the referral!

Because I'm a writer. I want to write the math properly. I'm sorry if I have become annoying, but I did kinda assume that some other people might also care* about prescribed rules of notation and maybe be able to point me at them. * [Edit: Sorry if that sounded critical. If you don't care...

Normally I am an above-average web searcher. But I cannot find any significant guide to mathematical notation. (I should head over to the university library. I love that place.) I find it hard to believe there's just NOT one out there! :confused:

(Putting it up in LATEX just for giggles ...) \sum_{P=1}^I \frac{\left(P+S-1\right)!}{\left(S-1\right)!} = \sum_{P=1}^I \prod_{i=S}^{P+S-1} i Heh. Looks like Latex requires some "parens" (actually curly braces, which don't render) in the product's upper limit: \prod_{i=S}^{P+S-1} i...

Yep, those rules are what I am looking for.

That would be the "order of operations" rule, right? which is basically a PUNCTUATION rule ... where to put your parentheses. A comprehensive (:-p) collection of such rules is what I seek.