Timeline for Beginning a sentence with a mathematical symbol
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 16, 2010 at 19:33 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Kim Morrison | ||
| May 16, 2010 at 6:44 | comment | added | Harry Gindi | @fedja: "Let X be an E.C. with. C.M.", where "with." of course stands for "without". | |
| May 16, 2010 at 1:55 | comment | added | fedja |
A friend of mine often wrote sentences like "Since for all $x>0$, $f(x)>0$, $\int_0^1 f>0$. Despite they didn't begin with a symbol and all the punctuation was in place, I usually had to spend a few seconds figuring out the meaning (though, if that had been read aloud to me with proper pauses, I would have no trouble with it). So, in my humble opinion, the more words between the formulae, the better...
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| May 15, 2010 at 21:46 | comment | added | KConrad | There was an earlier MO question on punctuation in math formulas at mathoverflow.net/questions/6675/… with a strong opinion expressed by Allen Hatcher. Greg, I think you can get any answer you wish on your writing questions by asking enough faculty in your department. | |
| May 15, 2010 at 21:32 | comment | added | KConrad | Greg, there is a difference between speaking and writing, so you shouldn't worry that writing doesn't always match speaking or that writing may take more effort than speaking. One concrete reason to avoid symbols at the start of a sentence is that it can be hard to see where a sentence ends and begins if you use symbols to start them. (Imagine a symbol ends a sentence, then a period, then another symbol.) Also, Serre has a list of writing tips which includes this advice. Amazingly (to me), some mathematicians don't mind starting sentences with symbols. But please stick to avoiding that! | |
| May 15, 2010 at 21:24 | history | answered | Tara Holm | CC BY-SA 2.5 |