[Om3] target K14 for reading content-math spec any realistic?

[Stan Devitt]

-----Original Message-----
From: member-math-request at w3.org [mailto:member-math-request at w3.org] On
Behalf Of jhd at cs.bath.ac.uk
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 10:47 AM
To: Stan Devitt
Cc: Paul Libbrecht; om3 at openmath.org; Math Working Group WG
Subject: Re: [Om3] target K14 for reading content-math spec any
realistic?
...
>
> The default definitions remain usable right up to the point where the 
> differences between the defaults and your useage interfere with or 
> become the focus of the mathematical  point you are trying to present.
> For example, in most  K-14 mathematical discussions around 
> trigonometric functions, the exact choice of branch cuts, etc. doesn't
matter.
Um - I think I disgaree here. SOME, yes, but the moment you ask for the
cube root of -1 it does start mattering.


James,

I probably did not say quite what I mean.  Of course the branch cuts
matter, and the actual definition needs to be precise and fairly
standard.  

However, from an authoring point of view, we should comfortable using
that "default" right up to the point that, for example, we needed to
talk about the differences between two different definitions, in which
case for precision, I would need to provide a link to a definition  of
the non-standard one.

As for the level of description in the summary, it needs to specify at a
minimum.

  1)  a clear indication to which definition is being used (probably by
reference to the liturature.
  2)  a description that is accessible to the casual mathematician.

As soon as the summary tries to cover too many of the details it starts
to fail on 2), and that is what I was trying to get at.

Stan