
Mathematical Notation
by Edward R. Scheinerman · first published 2011
13mentions
11recommended by
12HN commenters
2017–2026first – last mentioned
92% recommend8% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Compact, well-organized reference for looking up symbols, brackets, and sub/superscript conventions in science and engineering math; helpful for reading CS and ML papers and for building notation literacy.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…book [1] a couple years ago to help with the notation, and it's awesome. I've been able to walk through papers that I never would have understood without this rosetta stone. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
on “Why Don't Computer Scientists Learn Math? (2016)” ↗I highly recommend the book "Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists" by Edward Scheinerman (Amazon link: http://a.co/c1jcvLH ). It's short, and perfect for looking up symbols, brackets, subscript/superscript conventions etc. for science…
on “How to Read Mathematics” ↗Sort of copy-pasting one of my earlier comments, apologies, but I highly recommend the book "Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists" by Edward Scheinerman (Amazon link: http://a.co/c1jcvLH ). It's short, and perfect for looking up symbols, brackets, subscript/superscript conventions etc. for science…
on “Ask HN: How can I learn to read mathematical notation?” ↗There is a good book for math notation that I like: "Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists" https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
on “Ask HN: Good articles/courses for understanding mathematical notation?” ↗As someone in the same boat I've found this book to be very helpful. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1466230525 - Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists
on “Math Basics for Computer Science and Machine Learning [pdf]” ↗The following is a decent and reasonably priced reference: "Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists" https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
on “Ask HN: How can I learn to read mathematical notation?” ↗It's not really comparable to the yellow book and its meant as a glossary for an older audience, but I've found Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists [1] to be useful, especially for reading CS and ML papers. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
on “Mathematics Cheat Sheet [pdf]” ↗The rhino book is a good dead tree reference. https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers...
on “Ask HN: How did you learn math notation?” ↗I've found this book to be very helpful: Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists [0]. It's compact, very well organized, and has several indexes to make symbol lookups easier and good summaries of what they mean. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1466230525
on “Annotated equations for increased readability and understanding of papers” ↗…If you are not in the latter group, Wikipedia has OK summary articles on notation; and these two books offer variously concise and in-depth tools to built mathematical literacy: https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers... https://www.amazon.com/Programmers-Introduction-Mathematics-...
on “Mathics: A free, open-source alternative to Mathematica” ↗…need to get familiar with. When you come across a formula, just expand and read it out aloud in your own version of easy English. You will understand better and lose your fear of mathematics. A book like Mathematical Notation: A Guide for Engineers and Scientists by Edward Scheinerman is of great help here. There are of course lots of free resources for this on the web starting with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_mathematical_symbo...…
on “Six Math Essentials” ↗https://smile.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Enginee...
on “Ask HN: How can I learn to read mathematical notation?” ↗…the margin?). There could be filtering and voting so that experts could bypass the newbie commentary, etc.. I suppose part of my problem would be solved by getting a book like: https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Notation-Guide-Engineers... ...(which I just came across when composing this message). Maybe someone has a other suggestions for something like this? Maybe a site similar to this already exists? And on a slightly…
on “Course Notes – J.S. Milne” ↗