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In mathematics, brackets of various typographical forms, such as parentheses ( ), square brackets [ ], braces { } and angle brackets , are frequently used in mathematical notation. Generally, such bracketing denotes some form of grouping: in evaluating an expression containing a bracketed sub-expression, the operators in the sub-expression take ...
Order of operations, uses multiple types of brackets; Set, uses braces "{}" Interval, uses square brackets and parentheses; Matrix, uses square brackets and parentheses; Inner product space, uses parentheses and chevrons
Brackets are used in mathematics in a variety of notations, including standard notations for commutators, the floor function, the Lie bracket, equivalence classes, the Iverson bracket, and matrices. Square brackets may be used exclusively or in combination with parentheses to represent intervals as interval notation. [44]
Beyond elementary mathematics, [] are mostly used for other purposes, e.g. to denote a closed interval, or an equivalence class, so they appear rarely for grouping. The usage of the word "brackets" varies from country. In the United States, the term denotes [], known elsewhere as "square brackets".
4. Iverson bracket: if P is a predicate, [] may denote the Iverson bracket, that is the function that takes the value 1 for the values of the free variables in P for which P is true, and takes the value 0 otherwise.
This remained the standard [4] in mathematics until Kenneth E. Iverson introduced, in his 1962 book A Programming Language, the names "floor" and "ceiling" and the corresponding notations ⌊x⌋ and ⌈x⌉. [5] [6] (Iverson used square brackets for a different purpose, the Iverson bracket notation.) Both notations are now used in mathematics ...
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Formerly its main use was as a notation to indicate a group (a bracketing device serving the same function as parentheses): + ¯, meaning to add b and c first and then subtract the result from a, which would be written more commonly today as a − (b + c). Parentheses, used for grouping, are only rarely found in the mathematical literature ...