Monday, 14 January 2013

big list - What are the worst notations, in your opinion ?

My favorite example of bad notation is using $textrm{sin}^2(x)$ for $(textrm{sin}(x))^2$ and $textrm{sin}^{-1}(x)$ for $textrm{arcsin}(x)$, since this is basically the same notation used for two different things ($textrm{sin}^2(x)$ should mean $textrm{sin}(textrm{sin}(x))$ if $textrm{sin}^{-1}(x)$ means $textrm{arcsin}(x)$).



It might not be horrible, since it rarely leads to confusion, but it is inconsistent notation, which should be avoided in general.

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