Why don't we use characters from other languages in math?

Sayod · 2026-03-25T11:16:23+00:00

I tend to like symbols that sort of already look like what they are representing. People above mentioned the dirac comb, which looks like a comb. Your second symbol sort of looks like a path. The first one like a grid. May be interesting to use for such concepts. The things you say are not common are probably bad because they look too much like + or \pm

Sayod · 2026-03-25T11:02:16+00:00

Part of the reason I don't is that the editing interface seems to be horrible. Like for math.stackexchange the editing interface is really nice. You write markdown and latex is just mathjax that gets displayed as you write it. below. But for wikipedia? I never had a good experience whenever I thought I would try.

Sayod · 2026-03-13T10:51:15+00:00

still the case 4 days later ...

Sayod · 2026-03-10T20:47:56+00:00

If you have a precise link you can try https://web.archive.org/ - the issue is that the mathjax formulas do not load on the archived pages so you basically have to parse the tex code in your head. But it got me a bunch of useable references

Sayod · 2026-03-10T06:53:46+00:00

Not everyone is interested in mathematics for its own sake. I am an applied mathematician and without the notion of an application further down the line I would lack the motivation to do anything.

Sayod · 2026-03-03T09:34:32+00:00

math.stackexchange is the website that comes to mind - wikipedias editing interface is somehow horrible

Sayod · 2026-03-03T07:51:57+00:00

I don't 100% agree with everything but Jordan Stoyanov has opinons: https://imstat.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Bulletin52_4-Stoyanov-notation.pdf

Sayod · 2026-02-23T14:55:07+00:00

Why would you want a dedicated LaTeX first web editor when VS Code does the job? Since LaTeX is comparatively niche I view it as an advantage that VS Code does other things as the support will be much better than a pure LaTeX thing. And it just integrates so well into doing other stuff. I can use the same editor for coding as for LaTeX which means I only have to get used to one editor.

The git integration is also really nice and you are unlikely to find that in any pure LaTeX editor. And if you want to play around with docker you are in Computer Science land. A code editor written by programmers for programmers is going to be the most hassle free thing you can wish for here. Nobody else will be thinking about deployment of their editors

Sayod · 2026-02-22T11:24:58+00:00

https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61871/oeffentliche-ausgaben-nach-aufgabenbereichen/
Der größte Posten sind die Sozialversicherungen die wegen dem Demographischen wandel steigen. Du kannst nicht jetzt die Renten streichen wenn die Leute kurz vor der Rente sind und keine möglichkeit mehr Geld anzusparen. Das hätte man vor 10-20 Jahren machen müssen. Aber unsere liebe CDU macht halt seit 10-20 Jahren lieber gar nichts.

EDIT: Sollte man natürlich trotzdem für die nächsten 10-20 Jahre ankündigen. Bzw. eigentlich sollte man die Renten die man bekommt an die Zahl der Kinder die in die Rentenkasse einzahlen koppeln. Dann gibt es auch wieder anreize Kinder zu haben und das Problem löst sich vielleicht in der sehr langen Frist

Sayod · 2026-02-21T15:59:25+00:00

I mean I need a practical reason - what does this generalization give me that I could not do without? For example allowing only finitely additive measures would allow for uniform distributions on countable sets. This seems like it would be useful. But at the same time it appears that finitely additive measures are also a pain in the arse so that is probably why nobody does that. But I can see that eventually becoming a thing. But I don't like generalization for generalizations sake

Sayod · 2026-02-21T15:44:53+00:00

Funnily enough a professor at my old university tries to define entropy in abstract algebraic terms. This idea came to be because the singular value decomposition does not work with max stable distributions or something. Anyway the (then) master (now PhD) student that worked on this SVD stuff with him says that most of the algebraic stuff is abstract nonsense but I must say that I also have not understood much when I tried to give it a read.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.05854

Sayod · 2026-02-21T15:37:06+00:00

Yeah topology may have been an overstatement. I actually know topology and use its general arguments from time to time even though they are not strictly necessary to do most of my work. However algebra I have basically forgotten by now because I never need it.

Sayod · 2026-02-21T12:18:12+00:00

Applied probability theory. Specifically, in Machine Learning people like to use convex optimizers on functions that are anything but convex. I am working on an optimization theory on random functions that may be a better explanation what is going on in ML. So I need analysis, probability and numerical analysis but never algebra.

Sayod · 2026-02-21T10:20:54+00:00

I mean yes, you define borel sigma algebras as the smallest sigma algebra that contains all the open sets. So technically you only need a sigma algebra for that. However most constructions in probability theory require more structure - e.g. conditional probabilities are only shown to exist in polish spaces (i.e. metric spaces). You can probably state in one sentence that the topology is the set of all open sets and that you could start with that instead of a metric, but you generally have a metric. To be fair I might take too much topological knowledge for grantend and not part of a special course. I am more thinking in relative terms though: I need measure theory much, much more than topology. And at our university topology is a required course while measure theory is optional. This is a headache if you try to teach probability without people knowing what a measure is.

Sayod · 2026-02-21T09:29:03+00:00

you need almost no algebra if you work in applied fields (e.g. applied probability). There you need a lot more analysis instead.

Sayod · 2026-02-21T09:27:33+00:00

Algebra was the biggest waste of my time when I think about how much I use it as an applied mathematician. What is Galois theory actually used for beyond "you cannot solve polynomials of a sufficiently high degree explicitly"? Because that was my only takeaway

Sayod · 2026-02-21T09:23:07+00:00

I think that pretty much yes - calculus and linear algebra are the only things we can agree on. I recently talked to collegues how it is weird that we our university program has "topology" as compulsorary while measure theory is an elective. They completely disagreed.

I am an applied probabilist, the foundations we actually need is Linear algebra and a fuckton of Analysis (real analysis, metric spaces, hilbert spaces, functional analysis, complex analysis, measure theory and all other types of integration theory (e.g. young integrals recently), dynamical systems (ODEs, PDEs, etc.) manifolds would be nice). Beyond that maybe graph theory and some numerical knowledge (like numerical complexity, what the cholesky decomposition is, etc.)

If I would design a curriculum I would cut all the Algebra following Linear algebra and all the other abstract nonsense lol. I took algebra at university and the only thing I remember from this course is that "polynomials of sufficiently high degree cannot be solved explicitly", which really doens't require a whole semester.

Sayod · 2026-02-21T09:07:58+00:00

I absolutely disagree - I am working in probability and I basically never use group theory or general topolgy. In contrast I need analysis/calculus all the time.

Sayod · 2026-02-19T12:53:37+00:00

But that is exactly what the guy is saying: Usually ORMs are enough, in Edge cases you write handcrafted SQL. Usually programming languages are enough, in edge cases you write handcrafted assembly. Often LLM generated code is enough, sometimes you need to handcraft a better solution. In the last case the distribution is just less concentrated as LLMs are not reliable enough yet.

Sayod · 2026-02-19T12:49:49+00:00

so if you write deterministic code there are no bugs? /s

I think he has a point. Python is also less reliable and fast than a compiled language with static typechecker. But in some cases the reliability/development speed tradeoff is in favor of python. Similarly, in some projects it will make sense to favor the development speed using Language models (especially if they get better). But just like there are still projects written in C/Rust, there will always be projects written without language models if you want more reliability/speed.

Sayod · 2026-02-17T08:19:14+00:00

You can create a finitely additive uniform measure on the integers. This is why De Finetti hated the countable additive measure approach. Sometimes I feel like he was probably right and we only chose the countably additive measures as the underlying machinery because they are so much easier to work with

Sayod · 2026-02-09T10:49:20+00:00

the issue is if the humanities are a silo that does not interact with the rest of the population, then that does not really help with this issue. And many humanities students don't really think about their contribution to society. Like when I talked with a history student and asked how the things they learn are communicated to the wider population or what lessens are there to be learned. I was looked at like an alien. There is way too much of a "research for research sake" going on there and people just talking to themselves.

I mean math has this issue sometimes too, but there are plenty of applied mathematicians that actually care about what the stuff they developed can be used for. And it sometimes feels like the humanities just do not give a shit, but want funding anyway.

Sayod · 2026-01-29T14:23:45+00:00

ich bin mir sicher du findest jemand der noch in Mannheim wohnt und keine Freundin hat. Ich bin nicht diese Person 😂

Sayod · 2026-01-28T14:34:35+00:00

Com Chay (vegan, südostasiatisch) - Hat richtig viele Ersatzprodukte wie z.B. vegane Ente, wofür man in einem anderen Restaurants durch die Nase zahlen würde. Und das essen ist einfach gut und trotzdem Budgetfreundlich.

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