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I’m not sure I understand what the point of this is.

If I’m reading academic papers on a particular topic then I already know the notation the math is written in.

If I’m reading a paper outside of my field then I’m not really interested in the details of the equation but more of its application and what it means.



> If I’m reading academic papers on a particular topic then I already know the notation the math is written in.

This is not true in my field - notation is all over the place, even for the same topic.


A famous quote in Lee's "Introduction to Smooth Manifolds":

> differential geometry is the study of properties that are invariant under change of notation


> differential geometry is the study of properties that are invariant under change of notation

That ought to go on a t-shirt.


> If I’m reading a paper outside of my field then I’m not really interested in the details of the equation but more of its application and what it means.

This is fine, until you find the application interesting, and try to apply it. I've had to contact authors just to figure out which one of several parameters a, b, c, or d actually represented. To be fair, these came with apologies.


Welp, you might be a special case. When I'm reading papers outside of my field its because I'm looking for understanding. Annotated equations in this fashion seem real neat for that purpose.




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