Greatest and Least Prime Factors

[Henry Gould]

Jonathan Post wrote:
> Mathematician's analysis of failures of "plain English":
> http://www.cut-the-knot.org/language/plain.shtml
>
>  
> On 8/30/06, *franktaw at netscape.net <mailto:franktaw at netscape.net>* 
> <franktaw at netscape.net <mailto:franktaw at netscape.net>> wrote:
>
>     Yes, I agree: it is better to define it before you use it.
>
&&&& Anecdote: James Joseph Sylvester, when he was at John Hopkins 
University in the mid 1870's, would not discuss generalizations of the 
Euler phi function in class before he had devised a name for them. He 
went to his students and announced that he could now discuss the Euler 
phi function and its generalizations because they all because they are 
all members of a general class of what he called 'totient' functions. &&&&
>
>
>     It is still a problem, in my opinion, that Lpf is being used for two
>     such
>     closely related but - in a sense - opposite things.  This is even
>     though
>     most of the sequences using it (either way) do define it.
>
>     As for always spelling it out, this will never apply in formulas.  We
>     always define a shorter name, and then use that in the formula.
>     The question is, what shorter name should be used?
>
>     Franklin T. Adams-Watters
>
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: arndt at jjj.de <mailto:arndt at jjj.de>
>
>     * cino hilliard <hillcino368 at hotmail.com
>     <mailto:hillcino368 at hotmail.com>> [Aug 30. 2006 10:35]:
>     >
>     >
>     > ----Original Message Follows----
>     > [...]
>     > Also Gpf is widely used as General Protection Fault in windows
>     indicating a
>     > crash in your code.
>     >
>
>     ... and "Gallons Per Flush" at certain places in the USA  8-))
>
>
>     Seriously, abbreviations should IMHO be avoided unless either:
>     - really common (such as gcd and lcm)
>     - defined before use (and only if used at least three times)
>
>
>
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