One of the first things they teach you in algebra is that the letters you use to signify variables are arbitrary, and you can use whatever you want[1]. Like most of the 'first things' students are taught, this is almost entirely a lie: every letter has implicit connotations, and if (for example) you use "n" for a non-integer number, it'll confuse someone reading your work. More importantly, if you don't know what symbol choices imply, it'll be harder for you to understand what an equation is implicitly communicating, making it even more difficult to grasp the concepts that are actually being laid out.

So I've decided to go through the English alphabet and explicitly explain the connotations of each character as they might be used by a [unusually-bright-highschooler|reasonably-clever-college-student]-level mathematician working in pure(-ish) mathematics (with a little statistics/mechanics, as a treat). If you've finished (and still remember) highschool math, you're [...]

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Outline:

(01:08) The English Alphabet

(01:11) a

(01:31) b

(01:43) c

(01:55) d

(02:26) e

(03:07) f

(03:31) g

(04:05) h

(04:16) i

(05:03) j

(05:37) k

(06:27) l

(06:40) m

(07:34) n

(07:58) o

(08:18) p

(08:28) q

(08:38) r

(08:47) s

(09:00) t

(09:05) u

(09:37) v

(09:55) w

(10:10) x

(10:42) y

(11:10) z

(11:19) Note: Capitalization and the Identical Sign

The original text contained 13 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
December 7th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z7cTpi5fS4spdYyTc/algebraic-linguistics

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Algebraic Linguistics” by abstractapplic

LessWrong (30+ Karma)