What are the differences in mathematical notation around the world?

Question

I just learned that $\text{sen}\,x$ is the Portuguese notation for $\sin x$, and I was inspired to ask:

What differences are there in how mathematics is written around the world?

Note 1: I am likely going to be moving away from home in the upcoming years, so it would be personally nice for me to be aware of some differences in mathematical notation across different countries.

Note 2: I am aware that this question has an almost identical title, but it was only given one answer that would be new to some people (the accepted answer) and I am sure there must be many more differences than that.

I was surprised to learn that in Russian, $\tan$ is $\operatorname{tg}$ and $\cot$ is $\operatorname{ctg}$. — MJD, Apr 19 '14 at 20:18
I was surprised to see that US school children learn to compute things like $\sqrt[17]{544}$ until I found out that the notational conventions for long divisions are culture specific. — Hagen von Eitzen, Apr 19 '14 at 20:21
@HagenvonEitzen They write it differently though: like $17\overline{)544}$. That's the best I can do to mimic the notation. — , Apr 19 '14 at 20:24
$\require{enclose}17\enclose{longdiv}{544}$ \require{enclose} 17\enclose{longdiv}{544} — MJD, Apr 19 '14 at 20:27
@NotNotLogical Exacztly, and to me the only parseable expression that somehow resembles is the $17$th root of $544$. — Hagen von Eitzen, Apr 19 '14 at 20:27
Hyperbolic function in Russian (Ukrainian) sinh is sh, cosh is ch, tanh is th, cots is cth. Cyclic group $C_n$ is $<a_n>.$ — nadia-liza, Apr 19 '14 at 20:35
Well, there is also the difference in number naming, e.g. billion might be $10^9$ or $10^{12}$ (see here). — dtldarek, Apr 19 '14 at 21:46
One of my favourites: right to left convention in some languages — Dan Rust, Apr 19 '14 at 23:55

Sergio Parreiras · Answer 1 · 2014-04-19T21:07:13.830

1

Most differences are just derived directly from the language. Sine in Portuguese is "seno" so "sen" makes logical sense. In Russian, tangent is тангенс (pronounced as "tangens"). Just use google translate you you should be able to figure out. Some countries use the comma instead of dot to denote decimals: i.e 0,5 instead of 0.5

edited Apr 19 '14 at 21:07

answered Apr 19 '14 at 20:21

Sergio Parreiras

3,813

I'm not sure if $\sin x$ is written as $\text{sen }x$ in Spanish, because in the Spanish version of the Wikipedia page for sinus it is written as $\sin x$ and it states that "La abreviatura $\sin(\cdot)$ proviene del latín sĭnus." – Américo Tavares Apr 19 '14 at 20:38
@AméricoTavares: thanks corrected it – Sergio Parreiras Apr 19 '14 at 21:07
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Despite Wikipedia, $\text{sen}$ is very used in Spain. – Martín-Blas Pérez Pinilla Apr 19 '14 at 21:10

What are the differences in mathematical notation around the world?

1 Answers1