I am trying to read/parse a three-term equation from a comp-sci research paper, written as:
$$ \alpha + A\;log\;n/n^\gamma+B/n $$
The problem is I can't tell exactly what the log function applies to. I'm Googling around to try and find out the standard convention for order of operations when you have a function without parentheses, like log or sin or whatever, but I can't find any reliable information.
I can't tell if I should read that as $log(n)/n^\gamma$ or as $log(n/n^\gamma)$ or what.
So what does the $log$ apply to here, and in general, what are the conventional order-of-operation rules in mathematical notation when we have a function or operation that doesn't have parentheses, like $log$ or $sin$ or something?
The notation is ambiguous and should be avoided.
That said, the convention I've seen most often is that a $\log$ without parantheses "binds" to the very next token, only (e.g. variable $\log x$, function $\log \log x$ etc).
In your example, that would mean $\log(n) / n^\gamma$ (which also makes more sense, otherwise it would have been easier to write it as $\log n^{1-\gamma}$ instead).