Last year, a Blyth Institute researcher published a new notation for differentials that allow them to be algebraically manipulable (previous standard notation for higher-order differentials could not be used in an algebraic manner). This was published in Dynamics of Continuous, Discrete and Impulsive Systems, Series A: Mathematical Analysis. The paper was titled “Extending the Algebraic Manipulability of Differentials.”

Recently, a review of this paper was published in Mathematics Magazine, a publication of the Mathematics Association of America.

The review validated the overall the results of the paper, saying, “the authors make a strong case for a clear and honest notation that facilitates working with differentials”. While the reviewers agreed with the fact that the new notation makes working with differentials more straightforward, they thought that, for teaching, it “is probably just as confusing for students as the shorthand expression.”