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AIMO Prize - Note On Language and Notation

This document outlines mathematical notation and language that will be used in math competitions for teenaged schoolchildren. It defines notation for sets, floor/ceiling functions, fractions, integers, probabilities, combinations, sums, products, patterns, exponents, English terminology, triangle features, and definition symbols.

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brucewayne4530
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122 views1 page

AIMO Prize - Note On Language and Notation

This document outlines mathematical notation and language that will be used in math competitions for teenaged schoolchildren. It defines notation for sets, floor/ceiling functions, fractions, integers, probabilities, combinations, sums, products, patterns, exponents, English terminology, triangle features, and definition symbols.

Uploaded by

brucewayne4530
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Language and Notation

March 2024

This is a compendium of things which we would normally explain in maths competitions for teenaged schoolchildren.

1. Established mathematical notation will be used.


2. We might use a colon or a vertical line as a separator in set notation so {x | x ∈ Z, x > 0} = {y : y ∈ Z, y > 0}.

3. Floor and ceiling notation, so for x a real number we let ⌊x⌋ = max{z | x ∈ Z, z ≤ x}. Similarly ⌈x⌉ =
min{z | x ∈ Z, z ≥ x}.
4. Fractional part notation. If x is a real number, we define {x} to mean x − ⌊x⌋.
5. We write a line over a non-negative integer written in base 10 notation to indicate that it is being viewed as
a string of digits rather than a number. Thus the second digit of 1729 is 7 but 1729 does not have a second
digit because it is an integer.
6. We allow a phrase such as x is a 3-digit positive integer to mean that if written in Arabic notation as
x = am am−1 · · · a1 with ai all digits and am ̸= 0, then n = m. We allow ‘the sum of the digits of n’ to mean:
write n in Arabic base 10 notation and then sum the digits.

7. We allow informal probability language such as: a point is chosen uniformly at random in the interval [0, 1].
8. We use nr to denote the number of ways of choosing r things from n things.


9. The sum over the empty set is 0 and the product over the empty set is 1.

10. We use an ellipsis to denote an obvious pattern, either on the line of print of midline (as appropriate) so the
set of the first n positive integers can be written {1, 2, . . . , n} and their sum is 1 + 2 + · · · + n.
n n
11. For integers l, m, n then lm denotes l(m ) .
12. m0 = 1 for all integers m (including 0) if doing combinatorial enumeration. If x is real then x0 needs to be
clarified if x = 0.

13. British or American versions of English can be used. Thus “highest common factor” means the same as
“greatest common divisor”.
14. A prefix or subscript may be used to indicate features of a triangle associated with vertices. Thus triangle
ABC has three altitudes, and the one dropped from A could be denoted the altitude through A, the A-altitude
or the altitude ha . Similarly for median lines.
15. If the term natural number is used, then it will be made clear if 0 is a natural number.
16. := means ‘is defined to be equal to’.

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