
A Computer Scientist Tells Mathematicians How to Write Proofs - ghosh
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/2014/09/24/how-to-write-proofs/
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alexvoda
My biggest problem with the way math is done is the insistence on using single
letter names with at most some indices. How many good programmers would agree
that naming variables and functions with only one letter is a good idea? The
sad part is that this infiltrated all other fields related to mathematics. You
can not even imagine how much did teachers annoy me in high school when all
variables in Pascal(back then this was still the language that was thought)
programs were named with one letter (I started programing when I was in
elementary school) .

I believe this is caused by the symbol-less notation of the multiplication
operator. Since xy actually means x*y there is no way to have words as names.

A side problem caused by this is the overloading of the symbol-less operator
to mean something else in the case of mixed numerals (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraction_(mathematics)#Mixed_nu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraction_\(mathematics\)#Mixed_numbers)
). Thankfully, where I am from, this notation is only used in middle school.
But this caused a lot of problems when I was helping siblings with homework
since I was no longer used to that notation.

Oh, also, Tau is better than Pi (
[http://www.tauday.com/](http://www.tauday.com/) ).

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mariodiana
Actually, I wouldn't tell the mathematicians how to write proofs; I would tell
them how to write code.

I'm not a math guy, but I've at least seen math proofs. It's remarkable how
much English is there. It's like there's a paragraph or two explaining what
they're after, and then there's a mathematical equation. After the equation,
there's more text, explaining some more, and then another equation. A math
proof is replete with English.

But then you get some of these guys writing code and it's like, "Great! No
English!" There's not a comment to be found.

Or, take variables. "Let i represent column and j represent row" \-- because,
you know, it would simply just aggravate their carpal tunnel syndrome to have
to type out c-o-l-u-m-n and r-o-w. A real math he-man doesn't bother with
descriptive variable names! That's for liberal arts majors!

I just don't get it.

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avmich
Calling Leslie Lamport a computer scientist as opposed to mathematician is to
be not very familiar with the matters.

