The Universe of Discourse

Worst mathematical notation ever
All my blog posts lately seem to be turning into enormous meandering rants, which isn't so bad in itself, but I never finish any of them. So I thought I'd just cut this one short and stick to one point instead of seventeen. But someday you're all going to have to read the full article, which complains about how 1960s computer scientists, math grad students, and other insecure people who hunger for legitimacy sometimes try to get it by doing everything with as much notation and pseudo-formal language as possible.

$$\equiv_{i_0+1} = \equiv_{i_0} = \equiv$$

The explanation is that the author is constructing a sequence of equivalence relations, each one ≡_n derived from the previous one ≡_n-1. Eventually (after i₀ iterations of the procedure), the construction has nothing left to do, and the new relation is the same as the one from which it was constructed. At this point the constructed relation turns out to be a certain one ≡ with desirable properties.

[ Addendum 20220123: I've tried a couple of times to find these notes again, with no success. It's a tough thing to search for. ]

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