At 23:04 +0000 1998/12/13, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>However, the point is that the formal system used
>depends on the document, and on the subject matter.
>There is no "mathematical language" and never will be in my opinion.

There is a mathematical language in the same sense as there are human
languages, of course.

Then the question is in what sense this translates into a computer
language: When I analyzed the syntax of elementary functions, it turns out
that indeed, it is possible to defined a syntax which properly handles such
things such as that one is allowed to with sin x, mixed with functions
f(x), implicit multiplications a v, and so on: The syntax simply becomes
more complicated and sophisticated than the various available computer
languages.

One could not expect though that a single fixed syntax would encompass all
of mathematics and its different possible uses.

So I think the opposite is true: Eventually, there will certainly be a
mathematical computer language, which can be used to provide the
mathematical semantic information. It will come eventually, because it can
be built over time, but it is not otherwise very straightforward to do it,
as math is rather complicated, so it will not come very easily.

  Hans Aberg
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