Did Feynman really use his own trig notations?

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SUMMARY

Richard Feynman developed his own trigonometric notations due to his perception of standard symbols as ambiguous. In "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman," he describes replacing "sin x" with a sigma-like symbol and creating unique representations for cosine and tangent. This discussion highlights the tension between Feynman's innovative approach and the established mathematical conventions, emphasizing the importance of standardized notation for effective communication in mathematics and physics.

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  • #31
krab said:
I agree with Feynman's objections, but LaTeX gets around this problem by using different fonts for such functions. However, most newbies to LaTeX don't use this feature. Hence, sin x is correctly
\sin (x)
while most people on this forum incorrectly use
sin (x)
In the latter expression, LaTeX treats sin as s times i times n. Click each symbol to see how it's done; it's simply an extra backslash.
LaTeX doesn't treat it as anything, it's not a programming language, it's just a way of displaying symbols.
 
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  • #32
dextercioby said:
Sinus of "x" is correctly

\sin x

and not bracketed in any way.

Daniel.
Yes, that's usually the convention I use. But I was making a comparison. A newbie tends not to write "sin x" in LaTeX, because it looks like
sin x
(with no space) and I was guessing they tend to correct it by putting brackets round the x rather than cluing into the backslash.
 
  • #33
A newbie writes sin and not \sin because they are a newbie and not aware that \sin exists. It is nothing to do with their mathematical skills. If they care they will use \text{sin} first then learn about\ \sin
 
  • #34
Sometimes things get beyond hands and i had a feeling it would be so. (Hmm ESP? or is it just Murphy's Law in action). Anyways, i do agree with the inverse sin problem and some years back i found a neat solution. Now i use asin or arcsin and my problem is solved. (uh-oh, is this one of the "my way of writing inverse sin" syndrome? :-p)

-- AI
 
  • #35
Now i use asin or arcsin and my problem is solved.

I have for many years used "asin". But for me, the "a" does not stand for "arc". I read asin(x) as : "the angle whose sine is x".

The inverse sine of x is much harder for me to think about for some reason, then the angle whose sine is x.
 
  • #36
<br /> \frac{\sin x }{n} = six<br />

:smile:
 
  • #37
gazzo said:
<br /> \frac{\sin x }{n} = six<br />

:smile:
Eh? (And I mean that on so many levels)
 
  • #38
gazzo said:
<br /> \frac{\sin x }{n} = six<br />

Oh no, you've exposed the fact that mathematics is but an elaborate hoax! You've doomed us all! *runs*
 
  • #39
it was (kinda) funny at the time. bah, nevermind.
 

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