a letter by any other name .. seems strange to me.

currently i'm revising one proof which is about 4 thesis pages long [1] and i keep running out of indices. fortunately the indices are not nested -- no sub-sequences or sub-nets or anything like that -- but they serve different purposes:

• i is for the ith coordinate in euclidean n-space;
  
• j is an index for sets in a cover;
  
• k is a positive integer, which grows arbitrarily large;
  
• l is for another euclidean coordinate.
  

i just realised that i used k twice, and i'm not sure if i used m yet ..

.. minor annoyances. it could be worse.

it is interesting, though, how we associate some letters to specific mathematical roles.

m and n always seem like integers to me,
p and q exponents for the lebesgue spaces,
r for radii of metric balls,
s and t are continuous parameters or variables,
u and v are unit vectors,
w and z are complex-valued variables,
and we all know x and y.

.. anyways, back to work.

[1] when reformatted, it probably converts to 2 1/2, possibly 3 pages in the standard amsart package.