I notice programming stuff leaks into my thinking and writing often but I actually enjoy the various constructs that help clarify thinking. I don’t have any formal background in logic tho :(

What are some useful and accessible logical tools/operators/symbols that help in thinking+“pseudocode” Edit: definitely useful math/cs/logical symbols are particularly interesting

If you can, please copy/paste the actual unicode symbol or whatever

  • aDogCalledSpot
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    1 year ago

    I use the term rather loosely so it’s hard to say because it depends on the setting and how pedantic you want to be.

    In a continuous setting (time, for example), you will usually see the derivative of a function f(t) being denoted as a df(t)/dt. In some cases it would also be written as f’(t). Engineers are pretty much always dealing with functions across time so they added another notation which is simply a dot over a variable. E.g. if x is your position in space then ẋ is your velocity (the derivative over time). You can add another dot if you want your acceleration (the second derivative over time = the derivative of the velocity).

    The counterpart of a derivative is the integral which is always denoted by ∫f(t)dt.

    The discrete case is a bit more tricky because these things arent that well defined in these cases. People dont seem to mind if you go with the next best thing. The derivative is the difference between steps (Im not aware of a notation for this) and for the integral you would use a sum ∑.

    Note that even this wall of text doesnt cover all of it but I hope it gets the point across.