The main problem I have with mathematical notation right now is that I can’t skim it. If I am reading a document with some math notation in, I tend to just skip past it and figure out what’s going on from the surrounding text.
I can read it quickly and just see a bunch of apparently meaningless symbols. Or I can read it very, very slowly and carefully and figure out exactly what everything means and exactly what’s going on. But there’s nothing in between.
Computer code I find rather easier to skim, and natural language is much easier.
Is this a problem with the notation itself or is it just that I work with computer code on a day-to-day basis and don’t with maths, so that I’ve learnt how to skim it and spot the relevant patterns much more easily?
Some mathematics (like some computer code) is skimmable, if you have your eyes trained for it (That’s what a lot of programming and mathematics training is—learning to read.)
However, other mathematics, including most mathematics that you are probably interested in reading (groundbreaking research papers, for example) is just as non-skimmable as deliberately terse code by a master programmer in a terse language with a very large library.
Master programmers (because they do not usually have page limits) generally are not as terse as they can be; mathematicians vary, but sometimes are considerably more terse than they “can” be—because they have human readers who can fill in gaps if they’re relatively obvious.
The main problem I have with mathematical notation right now is that I can’t skim it. If I am reading a document with some math notation in, I tend to just skip past it and figure out what’s going on from the surrounding text.
I can read it quickly and just see a bunch of apparently meaningless symbols. Or I can read it very, very slowly and carefully and figure out exactly what everything means and exactly what’s going on. But there’s nothing in between.
Computer code I find rather easier to skim, and natural language is much easier.
Is this a problem with the notation itself or is it just that I work with computer code on a day-to-day basis and don’t with maths, so that I’ve learnt how to skim it and spot the relevant patterns much more easily?
Some mathematics (like some computer code) is skimmable, if you have your eyes trained for it (That’s what a lot of programming and mathematics training is—learning to read.)
However, other mathematics, including most mathematics that you are probably interested in reading (groundbreaking research papers, for example) is just as non-skimmable as deliberately terse code by a master programmer in a terse language with a very large library.
Master programmers (because they do not usually have page limits) generally are not as terse as they can be; mathematicians vary, but sometimes are considerably more terse than they “can” be—because they have human readers who can fill in gaps if they’re relatively obvious.