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Re: [Phys-l] math notation question



When I was growing up (ca. 1963). We called it box and it definitely was squared -- it's a dot product. A box in analogy w/ an inverted triangle. Since the the triangle both stands alone and is self dot producted, so should the box be squared when appropriate.

OTOH, P & P define the d'Alembertian w/o that little 2; bad.

bc, never noticed the confusion, bad.


p.s. Amazing success for a "foundling", or is it because?



Larry Smith wrote:

How widespread is the use of \Delta instead of \nabla^2 to mean the
Laplacian operator in 3-D?

In 4-D Minkowski space the Laplacian becomes the d'Alembertian. Should the
d'Alembertian operator be a square with or without a superscript 2? I've
seen it both ways.

Thanks,
Larry
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