By Richard Stanley
There is a famous anecdote about Barry Mazur coming up with the worst
notation possible at a seminar talk in order to annoy Serge Lang.
Mazur defined $\Xi$ to be a complex number and considered
the quotient of the conjugate of $\overline{\Xi}$ and $\Xi$:
$\frac{\overline{\Xi}}{\Xi}$
This looks even better on a blackboard since$\Xi$ is drawn as three horizonal
lines.
史上最差的符號, 是 Barry Mazur 在一次 seminar 中,
為了激怒(?) Serge Lang 而寫出來的
令 $\Xi$ 為一個複數, 就可以寫下他的共軛複數 $\overline{\Xi}$ 就可以寫下 後者除以前者:
$\frac{\overline{\Xi}}{\Xi}$