Talk:Glossary of mathematical symbols

Merge from List of mathematical symbols by subject

Both Glossary of mathematical symbols and List of mathematical symbols by subject list and define math symbols and group them by subject area. As a reader, I find it extremely inconvenient to have two separate lists. It's bad enough to have to check in two different places to see if Wikipedia has the information I'm looking for, but with these lists it's often impossible to type in the symbol I'm looking for information on (especially if I don't know its name or meaning) so I have to scroll to try to find it. Having to scroll through two giant lists is quite frustrating. -- Beland (talk) 21:35, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Support: Both articles discuss the same thing, just in different structures. It's redundant to reflect identical information for the same purposes in two places. However, I support tables being used over paragraphs. I feel that tables are easier to navigate and display more information in a more compact way, instead of wasting horizontal space. Plus, they hold LaTeX syntax and other useful notations, have an example of their usage, and the links to their respective articles are much easier to click (and tap, for mobile) on versus linking just 1 character. I also believe the List article is better organized and easier to locate the expected topic. WhoAteMyButter (🌇_talk│🍂^contribs) 23:41, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Support: I concur with all the points made.

Somewhat separately, I do think there is some merit to the organization of Glossary of mathematical symbols in that symbols which have multiple uses have all their uses grouped together. Perhaps there is a programmatic way to have a column of the table titled “Other usage” (or perhaps as part of “Notes”) which mentions/links to the other subject-specific tables on the page which also contain the symbol. That way a reader who is not sure what subject they are seeing the symbol in the context of can see all the possible thing symbol might represent. This would alleviate some scrolling (that @Beland mentioned) since one would ideally just have to find the first instance of a symbol in the list (and use its links) rather than the correct subject-specific instance.

Bert303 (talk) 10:33, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

If there is consensus for a merger, then best way is to redirect the List to the Glossary, since the latter is usefully organised. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:02, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Comments:

• Sourcing: Even list articles must be sourced, although sources can be deported to the linked article. Many of the symbols in List of mathematical symbols by subject are either very uncommon or not sourced nor defined in linked articles; this is the case, for example, of more than half of the entries in List of mathematical symbols by subject § Equality signs.
• Glossary vs. table: Contrarily to some above assertions, navigation is much more difficult with tables than with glossaries: On a smartphone, to read an entry, one has to 1/ find the right section, 2/ click on "more information", 3/ scrolling vertically to find the entry, 4/ scrolling horizontally to have access to the whole entry. Worse: if a reader want to understand the meaning of $\mathbb {R} \times \mathbb {R}$ (a very elementary notation), he will never learn that $\times$ refers, in this case, to a direct product.
• Limits of the classification by subject: The most common symbols are used everywhere in mathematics. So, classifying them by subjects is almost impossible. For example, $\mathbb {R} \times \mathbb {R}$ is a direct product of additive groups, a direct product of multiplicative monoids, a direct product of rings, a direct product of real vector spaces, a direct product of topological spaces, etc. All these concepts can be covered by an entry of $\times$ in "category theory", but this would make it difficult to find for a reader interested in linear algebra. This is for this sort of difficulties that Glossary of mathematical symbols has evolved from a table structure to a glossary structure. D.Lazard (talk) 16:43, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Oppose per above comments. However, I agree with JMF suggestion of simply redirecting the list to the glossary. This would be an elegant way to resolve the numerous issues of the list. D.Lazard (talk) 16:51, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Oppose unless the merger is done by redirecting the list to the glossary. Perhaps there is merit in providing alternative views of the same information and some readers may find the list format more accessible? If so, then let the status quo stand. Any attempt to combine them can only result in a dog's breakfast. And which brave soul would attempt such a Labour of Hercules? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

i don't see much of an issue with this Editor moment (talk) 17:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

User:Beland User:WhoAteMyButter User:Bert303 Are you all okay with JMF's suggestion to merge the other way around? redirect? OrdinaryGiraffe (talk) 01:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Y Support - Yes, I support JMF's suggestion. All that really matters to me is that the two articles are combined. WhoAteMyButter (🏔️_talk│❄️^contribs) 01:05, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good, that would still resolve the duplication. -- Beland (talk) 20:16, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

User:Bert303, I'm going to assume you're not still on Wikipedia and merge. I'm not going to close the discussion, just in case you object. (Edit to clarify: If you do object, reply somewhere in this topic and I'll undo my change.)OrdinaryGiraffe (talk) 21:55, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

User:Bert303 See above comment OrdinaryGiraffe (talk) 21:55, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for my lateness. Thank you all for moving this forward.

I personally still like the format of the list article over the glossary, but it's good that we have chosen one page to move forward with. We can always shape the glossary page in the future to have any beneficial features that the list article had.

Bert303 (talk) 00:55, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

If you want, I could always revert my change. If not, could you explain what you mean by beneficial features, so I (or another user) can try and integrate them? OrdinaryGiraffe (talk) 16:08, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I in List of mathematical symbols by subject and Glossary of mathematical symbols

in BOTH pages i do miss the 'I' for Irrational numbers , as i learned on school 85.149.83.125 (talk) 12:42, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@85.149.83.125: I cannot find any sources that use that notation; if it's a thing, it seems rare. It's also not mentioned on Irrational number. Are you sure you're not thinking of imaginary numbers? -- Beland (talk) 20:31, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

85.149.83.125 is probably thinking of $i$ (so yes, imaginary numbers). --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

No, I think that the IP is thinking of $\mathbb {I}$ for the set of irrational numbers (that is, $\mathbb {R}$/$\mathbb {Q}$); that's a use I recognize from many years ago, and it seems that others do too: see this blog from 2007. If we can find reliable sources using this, then it's worth adding to the list too. Klbrain (talk) 14:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

A quick Google search for "set of irrational numbers" turns up multiple instances of $\mathbb {Q} '$ so not looking good for $\mathbb {I}$, sorry. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Replace box as placeholder symbol with dotted circle?

The convention in articles about diacritics is to use U+25CC ◌ DOTTED CIRCLE (as in this example: U+0302 ◌̂ COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT). This article currently uses the box symbol □ as place holder, but the symbol has a given mathematical meaning (d'Alembert operator): might it be sensible to replace it with something innocuous? Would dotted circle fit the bill? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:48, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Y A dotted circle sounds reasonable to me. I don't think a dotted circle is used in mathematics, while a hollow box is. The note in the article '(here an actual box, not a placeholder)' would benefit. WhoAteMyButter (🏔️_talk│❄️^contribs) 16:23, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

We need a placeholder that can be rendered in latex. I do not know if this is possible for the dotted circle. If it is not possible I am strongly against the use of the dotted circle, which is a special symbol whose usage is discouraged in Wikipedia. D.Lazard (talk) 17:56, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

It is certainly not "strongly discouraged in Wikipedia", it is a standard and essential facility of {{unichar}} to demonstrate combining diacritics, used in hundreds of articles. The character exists in Unicode only to be an unambiguous place-holder, it should not be reused for anything else. So in theory, it would be ideal – but the fact that it is not in the LaTeX repertoire] kills the dead in its tracks. Pity.--𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:21, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

For the record, the use of special Unicode symbols are not discouraged in articles on typography, diacritics and Unicode. But the use of special symbols are discouraged in other articles when they are not correctly rendered in all browsers and all fonts. See, for example, MOS:CURLY and MOS:BBB. D.Lazard (talk) 18:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

The VisualEditor's formula window tends to use lowercase a, b (and also x, y); see File:VisualEditor formula-en.png (a, b). May that be a starting point? Most readers are familiar with basic, single-letter variables as placeholders ($ax^{2}$, anyone?). WhoAteMyButter (🏔️_talk│❄️^contribs) 20:11, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

For not being confusing, one must use a placeholder that does not appear normally in any formula. I suggest $\diamond$ (\diamond) or $\blacksquare$ (\blacksquare), with a slight preference for $\diamond .$ D.Lazard (talk) 21:26, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I feel as if that would confuse readers more, as I doubt anyone has encountered a $\diamond$ before as a placeholder (and would understand what it is trying to convey). A (albeit thin) black square $\blacksquare$ is also used as a tombstone.

Furthermore, some symbols are used with more than 1 variable (Leibniz's notation) so I feel that using 1 symbol across them would lead to confusion over seemingly identical variables. I'm not sure if using a, b, c across different symbols would lead to as much confusion. WhoAteMyButter (🌷_talk│🌻^contribs) 21:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

In mathematics, a tombstone is never used inside a formula. So it does not matter if it appears here as placeholder. Also, a placeholder must not be confused with a variable. In particular, it must be clear in the introduction that a placeholder is used for marking the place of a variable or any mathematical expression, and several occurence of the same placeholder in a formula does not imply that it takes the place of the same expression (see § Parentheses). As, in mathematics, lettters are used for variables, and two occurences of the same variable represent the same value, the use of variables as placeholders would be the best way for making the article confusing. Thus a placeholder must be a symbol that is never used in formulas. Dotted circle would be a good choice if it would exist in latex. So, if the placeholder must be changed, $\diamond$ seems the best choice ($\blacksquare$ would give too much visual emphasis to the placeholder). D.Lazard (talk) 22:22, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense to me – I understand now. I'd support a diamond, then. WhoAteMyButter (🌷_talk│🌻^contribs) 22:35, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

At a second thought, it seems less confusing to keep the square box as a placeholder. Firstly, it is already used commonly as a placeholder for unicode characters that cannot be displayed by the browser. So, its use should be less astonishing than the diamond for many readers. Secondly, the use of square box in mathematics is limited to the d'Alembert operator, which belongs to theoretical physics and more specifically to theory of relativity. So, one cannot encounter this symbol without a good mathematical background, and one may expect that readers with such a background would not search here for this symbol. D.Lazard (talk) 09:32, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

As OP, I must agree with D.Lazard's conclusion. A placeholder must be self-evidently "non-significant", which means that we can't choose our own convention arbitrarily. The only credible option is dotted circle which we can't use unless and until LaTeX adopts it. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:18, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Page was much more legible before the merge

I have been using "List of mathematical symbols by subject" as a reference for several years. I have some feedback on the recent merge:

• "Glossary of mathematical symbols" contains much less information relevant (e.g. LaTeX code). The summary of the symbols isn't all that helpful because I could always click on the hyperlink to see a summary of the symbol at the top of the relevant page.

• The inconsistent spacing between symbols when scrolling by eye makes it much harder to visually identify a symbol about which one potentially has no information other than the visual appearance.

• The typesetting of operators and symbols alongside text is very messy and the article in general does not look professional. I would recommend at least setting individual symbols in-line with their text.

• Entries such as:

□(□)
□(□, □)
□(□, ..., □)

are ambiguous. Is this all one object or three examples?

• The section/sub-section structure is less useful. Why does 'calculus' have no subsections while 'brackets' does? The structure was more useable when it was more granular but with effective high-level section headings.

• There is less information on the new page.

I appreciate what this merge was attempting to do, but as it is this page seems to serve a difference purpose than that from before. Personally, I will replace my bookmark to direct me to the historical page, as that was much more useful. HyadesHoliday (talk) 17:20, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this opinion. I also have been using Symbols by Subject for the Latex codes, and after the merge, it has become much more difficult to find the code for the symbol. Additionally, I agree it is inconvenient to read which symbols were better when they were displayed on the tables. And I agree that this merged article seems to serve a different purpose than the Symbols by Subject. This became very less useful for me. 59.7.50.242 (talk) 01:44, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

This article is for general use, not for Wikipedia editors or typographers. As said in the introduction, it suffices to read the source of the article to know latex codes, and this should be easy for a Wikipedia editor. Otherwise said, the article is about the mathematical meaning of the symbols, not about their typography. Possibly, the latex code and the Unicode name could be added in the {{term}} fields, but I am not sure that this would be an improvement. In any case this would require a consensus here. D.Lazard (talk) 09:14, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@D.Lazard I am not sure what side you are coming down on here; I am a general-use user as I was using the merged page to write a thesis in computer science, not Wikipedia articles. I should not need to inspect the source of an article in order to find out relevant information. For this purpose the merged page was much more useful. We are all agreed that this article is about the mathematical meaning, not the typography - however this is why the merged page served a distinct function and should have been kept separate. In any case, legibility is the greatest part of understanding and in that regard the merged page was more useful as it was much easier to read and the links to the relevant (and complete!) descriptions, as contained within the dedicated Wikipedia pages for each symbol, were easy to identify. Not to mention that there remains many more symbols on the merged page than on the current one, so however one looks at it, information has been lost. HyadesHoliday (talk) 14:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

See Wikipedia is not a manual. The purpose of the article is to explain mathematical notation. It is not its function to tell you how to write LaTeX. There are many (better) resources for that. It is as undue to include it as it would be to derive one of the functions it describes. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:09, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not a manual" does not apply here because simply using some functionality for a practical purpose does not mean that functionality is "manual-like". There are many useful mathematical and physical articles on Wikipedia that I have used for references for equations and so on in the past, but no-one would argue that the inclusion of, for example, F=ma in an article about Newtonian force is inappropriate because "wikipedia is not a manual", because F=ma is a relevant piece of information for the subject. Likewise, in an article about a symbol it is relevant to include common encodings of that symbol. If you disagree, consider that any decent article for a mathematical symbol includes the unicode and LaTeX for that symbol, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equals_sign#Not_equal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turned_A, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_symbol. Should we remove the TeX from those as well?

Anyway I think we agree that he article is to explain mathematical notation, which, again, is why having a separate page with LaTeX and so on was so helpful. Besides, if the merge could be undone, and the LaTeX removed, that would at least address five of my six complaints with this merged page (although, again, I don't see why such functionality should be removed). HyadesHoliday (talk) 11:47, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

For the latex syntax of those Latex symbols that are available in Wikipedia, see Help:FORMULA#Formatting using LaTeX. For HTML symbols, see Help:FORMULA#HTML entities. D.Lazard (talk) 15:17, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

As a holding position, the last version of the list article is here, so you can at least get on with writing your thesis. I realise that this doesn't help anyone else, so a more sustainable solution is needed. Could the LaTeX article be improved instead? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:49, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@HyadesHoliday: Among the external links of another article, I see The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List. I don't know how "official" it is but would it help to add that to the end of this article? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:37, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@D.Lazard: The issue isn't that I don't have a reference to LaTeX code, as I know I can find the code elsewhere and I can use the old page. The issue is that where once this page was a useful collection of information on the name, meaning, and typographical information of many mathematical symbols, the typical user will now only see a the name and meaning of fewer symbols with worse formatting, and I was trying to give a user (rather than an editor) perspective on this. For example, it's ridiculous to expect the average user to access Help:FORMULA#Formatting using LaTeX for LaTeX symbols. I will survive, since I have the old page bookmarked, and I think I've said my piece on the utility of this one. HyadesHoliday (talk) 11:18, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

More symbols for logical equivalence

Logical equivalence is often denoted by an ordinary = sign or the triple-bar sign. Is the omission of these alternatives accidental or deliberate? Mdmi (talk) 23:00, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

If accidental on the part of others, I appreciate the omission. This glossary gets somewhat close to being the territory, rather than the map. Remsense诉 23:24, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

LaTeX commands

One of the merged articles used to contain the Latex commands that produce each symbol. I found this very useful. Can I still find the table anywhere else? Or some table like that one...

The LaTeX commands are in the source, but it's not the same. Madhing (talk) 21:25, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind, this has been discussed before. Madhing (talk) 21:35, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

For the convenience of future readers with the same question, see The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:35, 21 April 2024 (UTC)