Function application without parentheses: Difference between revisions
(Created page with "Category:Ambiguities It's sometimes OK to write a function name followed by its argument, without any parentheses. Because there's There is no function application symb...") |
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\[ \sin \theta, \ln x \] | \[ \sin \theta, \ln x \] | ||
So is it only OK to omit the parentheses for well-known functions? Or is it for any function whose name is longer than one letter? Christian Lawson-Perfect asked<ref>[https://twitter.com/christianp/status/1412411447552917515 Tweet by Christian Lawson-Perfect], [https://mathstodon.xyz/@christianp/106534017984381320 toot by Christian Lawson-Perfect]</ref>, and got mixed responses. | So is it only OK to omit the parentheses for well-known functions? Or is it for any function whose name is longer than one letter? Christian Lawson-Perfect asked<ref>[https://twitter.com/christianp/status/1412411447552917515 Tweet by Christian Lawson-Perfect], [https://mathstodon.xyz/@christianp/106534017984381320 toot by Christian Lawson-Perfect]</ref><ref>[https://twitter.com/christianp/status/1036895727442644992 Earlier tweet by Christian Lawson-Perfect]</ref>, and got mixed responses. | ||
Deyan Ginev searched for occurrences of <code>f x</code> in arXiv papers<ref>[https://gist.github.com/dginev/0587ce0264f03f2787503b6e4c14a342 A report on the direct uses of "f x" (without parentheses) in arXiv] by Deyan Ginev</ref> and found about 7,000 papers containing that pattern, but a quick glance didn't turn up any where \(f x\) was unambiguously intended to mean "the application of the function \(f\) to \(x\)". | Deyan Ginev searched for occurrences of <code>f x</code> in arXiv papers<ref>[https://gist.github.com/dginev/0587ce0264f03f2787503b6e4c14a342 A report on the direct uses of "f x" (without parentheses) in arXiv] by Deyan Ginev</ref> and found about 7,000 papers containing that pattern, but a quick glance didn't turn up any where \(f x\) was unambiguously intended to mean "the application of the function \(f\) to \(x\)". | ||
Revision as of 14:57, 8 July 2021
It's sometimes OK to write a function name followed by its argument, without any parentheses. Because there's there is no function application symbol, this can look like a multiplication.
This is an example of juxtaposition means combine in the obvious way.
This is most usually done with the trigonometric functions and logarithms, e.g.
\[ \sin \theta, \ln x \]
So is it only OK to omit the parentheses for well-known functions? Or is it for any function whose name is longer than one letter? Christian Lawson-Perfect asked[1][2], and got mixed responses.
Deyan Ginev searched for occurrences of f x in arXiv papers[3] and found about 7,000 papers containing that pattern, but a quick glance didn't turn up any where \(f x\) was unambiguously intended to mean "the application of the function \(f\) to \(x\)".
