[Om] [Om3] Math in office documents/Providing an implementation for a symbol

Professor James Davenport jhd at cs.bath.ac.uk
Tue Dec 16 11:10:30 CET 2008


On Tue, December 16, 2008 2:12 am, Bryce L Nordgren wrote:
> First off, sorry for sending the request twice.
Redirecting to OM: OM3 is largely about the internals of OM3.

> Also, I may have missed something, but from
> what I can tell, the only way to define new symbols for use with either
> MathML or OM is to define it within an OM content dictionary.
That is indeed the general idea.
> My concern with the
> <FMP> element is that is a tool used to describe the properties of a
> black box, where the symbol is any object satisfying all of the
> <FMP>s. As I understand it, additional <FMP>s are not
> equivilent to "alternative implementations"; in my understanding, they
> are additional constraints on the symbol, and ALL constraints must be
> jointly satisfied.
Correct.
> I want to directly define what the black box contains, without
> necessarily describing any of its properties.
But, if you are defining what it contains, aren't you therefore ALSO
defining its properties?
> For instance, I want a function called
> Planck_bb_freq(nu, T), to compute an object's blackbody radiance at the
> given frequency and temp.&nbsp; Given SI units, there is only one correct
> implementing expression.
<snip - not least because my mailer filled it with XML>

It sounds like you want what used to be called a DEFMP, and is still (as
far as I know) being considered for OM3 under FMP type=defining". See also
the last paragraph of section 7.2 on my paper with Stratford (MKM 2008).
The idea here is "the definiens can be completely replaced by the
definiendum" (Principia Mathematics I, p. 11), which seems ot be what you
are asking for.

James Davenport
Hebron & Medlock Professor of Information Technology
Formerly RAE Coordinator and Undergraduate Director of Studies, CS Dept
Lecturer on CM30070, 30078, 50209, 50123, 50199
Chairman, Powerful Computing WP, University of Bath
OpenMath Content Dictionary Editor
IMU Committee on Electronic Information and Communication



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