# [texhax] derivatives and integrals: math operators

Victor Ivrii vivrii at gmail.com
Fri Aug 7 13:36:40 CEST 2009

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 5:26 AM, Toby Cubitt<tsc25 at cantab.net> wrote:
> Phil Parker wrote:
>> Since we create the stuff, we get to make the rules, conventions, guidelines,
>> etc. Perhaps they want to change it so they can feel some sort of ownership of
>> it when they use it. (Who knows? I'm not a psychologist! But I suspect it's
>> more to keep us from reading physics too readily: we haven't paid our dues,
>> and physics is a lot easier to understand with advanced math than with
>> elementary math [a.k.a. "the hard way" or Phys 101 way].)

Forgive them, Lord, as they don't know what they are doing

>
> And THE most annoying mathematics quirk is to expend inordinate amounts of
> time arguing over notation

> And THE most annoying mathematics quirk is to expend inordinate amounts of
> time arguing over notation

This is a matter of faith and compromises compromise it! The heretics
will be sent to hell where they will use exclusively M\$ products as as
a cruel but well deserved punishment

> and trivialities (entire papers of the stuff!)
> rather than publishing something with actual content ;-)
>

This is true but not-mathematics specific

I enjoyed this discussion. Basically I see no reasons beyond aesthetic
ones and "I do as my supervisor did"

>  An alternative is to indicate the
> variables explicitly in the limits,

> \int_{x=0}^{x=1} \int_{y=-1}^{y=1} f(x,y) dx dy

> but this seems to be too long-winded for most people.

Some of my esteemed colleagues even do not write dx at all.

At let me quote myself "All mathematicians understand and know
integral of cocycle over cycle. However some mathematicians still
remember very esoteric notion of \int_a^b f(x) dx"  :-)

Victor
--
========================
Victor Ivrii, Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto
http://www.math.toronto.edu/ivrii
and trivialities (entire papers of the stuff!)
> rather than publishing something with actual content ;-)
>
>
> Toby
>
> [A lapsed physicist turned mathematician, who agrees that someone ought to
> explain the difference between set product and tensor product to the
> physicists, bless 'em]
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--
========================
Victor Ivrii, Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto
http://www.math.toronto.edu/ivrii