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[im3w1l]

Early mathematicians used words instead of symbols

> To determine two quantities from their difference and product, multiply the product by four, then add the square of the difference and take the square root. Write this result down in two slots. Increase the first slot by the difference and decrease the second by the difference. Cut each slot in half to obtain the values of the two quantities.

[colejohnson66 → im3w1l]

If I’m reading this right, this is saying, given:

    diff := abs(a - b)
    prod := a * b`

Fine `a` and `b` by doing:

    temp := sqrt(prod * 4 + diff^2)
    a := (temp + diff) / 2
    b := (temp - diff) / 2

That was a lot of words for something that (I feel) is easily expressed with symbols. It took me a minutes or two to figure out what you meant by “slot”

[jmt_ → colejohnson66]

When it comes to math at least, I think the key is finding the balance between symbolic and lexical representation. Some ideas are far to "wordy" to not use symbols. Some ideas have far to much depth to just explain with symbols. But using words to explain symbols? Very good in my experience during my math degree.