> I have a lot to say about notation in math, but this isn't the forum. There are a lot of crimes committed, agreed, but some of the things people pick out are only bad because they don't know the context where they redeem themselves.
Indeed - I wish we could conceal those notations until the redemptive context became more apparent, in the same way that Latin teachers can conceal Sallust's inconcinitas until students are ready for it.
Raising to the power of "-1" means that we are inverting the operation in question, so inverting the application of function "f" to argument "x" will be to apply f^{-1} to x instead.
Now I'm not saying it's good notation, but some of the fields I've worked in, the notation is not only OK, it's genuinely empowering, as a good notation should be.
I have a lot to say about notation in math, but this isn't the forum. There are a lot of crimes committed, agreed, but some of the things people pick out are only bad because they don't know the context where they redeem themselves.