alt Hacker NewsMy biggest pet peeve in complex analysis is the concept of multi-value functions.
Functions are defined as relations on two sets such that each element in the first set is in relation to at most one element in the second set. And suddenly we abandon that very definitions without ever changing the notation! Complex logarithms suddenly have infinitely many values! And yet we say complex expressions are equal to something.
Madness.
Idk, to me it feels much much better than just picking one root when defining the inverse function.
This desire to absolutely pick one when from the purely mathematical perspective they're all equal is both ugly and harmful (as in complicates things down the line).