Template talk:Mathematical expressions

Missing

grouping (parentheses)

Equations (=), inequalities, and inequations (not =) as expressions (e.g. x = x, treated as an expression, reduces to true)

power towers, finite and infinite

nested radicals, finite and infinite

hyperoperations

multivariable and vector calculus

integral transforms and other transforms

operators (differential and integral, vector)

probability and statistics operators

sets and set operations (union, intersection, ...)

logic (and, or, not, implication, truth values, quantifiers, higher order logic...)

vectors and matrices and their operations

roots of polynomials that cannot be expressed as radicals (e.g. roots of x^5 + x + 1)

complex numbers and other categories of numbers (natural, integer, rational, real, quaternions, ...)

combinatorics (combinations, permutations, ...)

functions as expressions (e.g. f(x + a) + b as an expression)

and many more...

75.46.182.198 (talk) 02:05, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Template doesn't show up on mobile

Neither on the template page nor on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-form_expression.

Maybe it should be added to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Templates_that_are_not_mobile_friendly?

Sorry if I've misunderstood, I don't have much experience yet with editing wikipedia.

Voggum (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@Voggum: for me it works perfectly fine on Chrome for Android. What browser are you using? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 19:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jochem van Hees: Thanks -- actually works fine now for me too. Voggum (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Ah nice, I checked the page history and it looks like it has already been dealt with by changing it from a navbox to a wikitable. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 19:13, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Existence of this template

While admiring the bold initiative, I think that this template should not exist. My reason is that it cannot possibly be complete and encyclopedic. There are just too many kinds of mathematical expressions. See for example Commutative diagram. Mgnbar (talk) 15:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I think a commutative diagram is not an expression but a notation for a set of equations.  --Lambiam 19:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Is $\omega \wedge \psi$ an expression? Is $Z=X\times Y$ an expression? Is $f:X\to Y$ an expression? What operational definition of expression is this template going to use? Mgnbar (talk) 22:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

In view of what I believe the purpose of this template to be, I think it only concerns expressions that take values in one of the number systems commonly used in elementary algebra and analysis, ℝ or ℂ. So no quaternions, vectors, truth values, sets, ordinals, and so on. The entries in the leftmost column should be interpreted as ingredients that can or cannot be used in the various kinds of expressions. For example, log(x) is a closed-form expression, so  Yes  at the intersection of the row Logarithm and the column Closed-form expressions is meant to convey that closed-form expressions can use the log function. It is not an algebraic expression, hence the  No  one column to the left.  --Lambiam 06:35, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think a table (brightly colored or otherwise) is a very useful way of describing what these terms mean. 2–3 paragraphs of prose would be clearer, would take up less space, and would be significantly less distracting. –jacobolus (t) 18:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the purpose of the table is not to list all conceivable kinds of mathematical expressions, but to highlight the differences between the notions of algebraic expression, closed-form expression and analytic expression.  --Lambiam 19:21, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Frequently we have discussions about how to make math on Wikipedia more accessible to a wider audience. Sometimes it is proposed that each article have a comprehensive explanation of notation, through a glossary, heavy linking, etc. I suspect that this template is another attempt in that direction. And of course accessibility is a noble goal, and I don't want to stand in its way.

But I feel that, if this template continues to exist, then its scope must be clarified. It needs to be clarified to editors, so that they don't go overloading it with advanced math notation. It needs to be clarified to readers, so that they aren't misled into thinking that it's comprehensive, either for math's needs or for their needs. And that scope seems to be something like "secondary school symbolic math".

I'm particularly concerned about an intermediate reader, such as a hypothetical applied engineer who uses 19th-century math heavily but 20th-century math not at all. Does the integral $\int _{a}^{b}f(x)\;dx$ fall within this template's scope? Yes, because it's a real number? Then does the Laplacian $\Delta$? No, because it's a function of functions of real numbers? Then what about the antiderivative $\int f(x)\;dx$? Mgnbar (talk) 19:32, 8 December 2024 (UTC)