Re: Mixed Numbers

Chuck Riggs wrote:
On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:02:22 -0400, "James Silverton"
<not.jim.silverton@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I very much doubt if many serious mathematicians write the word "vinculum". It's not something for which there is much use. In passing, Donald Knuth's many books are worth reading both for content and footnotes. Another small comment on Knuth; he must be one of the few people who have a pipe organ built into his house.

He can't be all bad, then, an AmE expression from my youth, forty-five
years ago.

Does he discuss equations that are difficult to solve or is he more of
a terminology man? If the latter, I'll pass.

He's more of an algorithm man. Knuth is the author of "The Art Of
Computer Programming", volumes 1 to 3. (Sections of volume 4 are in
print, but as far as I know that volume is not complete.) Most of
us have serious doubts that he'll ever finish the proposed 7-volume
set.

Not that I'm knocking him. The first 3 volumes are widely regarded as
seriously important works, a must-have on the shelves of computer
scientists. It's just that, since he's now 71 years old, it's
starting to look as if he has bitten off more than he can chew.
I can understand that. I myself am an author of an important book
in systems theory that's been in draft form for many years, and that
will probably never be finished. All you people out there who want
to know the latest unpublished results about dissipative systems and
the stability of large-scale systems: sorry, but it will have
to depend on private correspondence, and even then you'll only get
photocopies of handwritten notes. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh has decided that it's a boring topic of interest only to
people who wear pocket protectors and who read things like
alt.usage.english in their spare time.

I should add that Knuth is also the inventor of TeX, a publishing
markup notation that is an essential tool for practically
everyone doing technical publishing. If you've ever had to struggle
with something like "Microsoft Equation", you'll appreciate how
important it is to have a tool that doesn't screw up writings that
need to use scientific/mathematical notation.

By the way, I agree with James: most people who have to work with
mathematical notation have probably never heard of the word
"vinculum". It just doesn't get used today. It would probably
be understood by a specialist in the history of mathematics.

--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Idiosyncratic (or idiotic?) notation for lim inf, etc.
    ... and they're easy to find in lots of books. ... seem to be a single set of "standard proofs". ... >>an even worse idea to use in public the notation that I have ... For any particular reason? ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Becoming good without full time college?
    ... Those books are usually "EZ play" books in ... Reading can be a hinderance as much as a help. ... over not having notation in front of them. ... guitar chords? ...
    (alt.guitar.bass)
  • Re: Kuratowski Ordered Pair
    ... There's no such generalization in Z set theory. ... books so that I can better follow along what you're saying. ... it help ME if I knew where you notation is coming from. ... mathematics that is already abundantly explained in all kinds of ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Writing FOL
    ... notations used to write FOL in books. ... individual symbols, and generally, we call it 'conventional notation', ... I wonder how should I write a syntactical system: ... universal quantifier, existential quantifier, uniqueness, unique ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: repeating decimal notation
    ... the line above some numbers after the decimal point is called vinculum ... which is the notation for repeating decimal, ... decimals. ...
    (sci.math)