Re: [math-fun] Which letters are used as variables in which languages?
=Dan Asimov
=Andy
After all, English mathematics routinely uses i as a variable in subscripts, and as the square root of -1, and that never seems to be a problem.
I don't have any info about your other comments, but I can confirm that in English mathematics where the (or a) square root of -1 plays an important role, the subscript i (for an integer) is usually avoided.
Moreover, there's some element of the engineering world that eschews i in favor of j.
I'd've thought that these days \iota was more common for sqrt(-1) than i, which I associate with the school-room rather than academe. WFL On 10/6/09, Marc LeBrun <mlb@well.com> wrote:
=Dan Asimov
=Andy
After all, English mathematics routinely uses i as a variable in subscripts, and as the square root of -1, and that never seems to be a problem.
I don't have any info about your other comments, but I can confirm that in English mathematics where the (or a) square root of -1 plays an important role, the subscript i (for an integer) is usually avoided.
Moreover, there's some element of the engineering world that eschews i in favor of j.
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* Marc LeBrun <mlb@well.com> [Oct 06. 2009 19:19]:
[...]
Moreover, there's some element of the engineering world that eschews i in favor of j.
... b/c engineering sums are always using index i and double sums are out of bound 8-)) FORTRAN! P.S.: ä, ö, ü, and ß are sadly neglected as indices for summation.
participants (3)
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Fred lunnon -
Joerg Arndt -
Marc LeBrun