What Does Q-Prime ($Q'$) Actually Mean?
$\Begingroup$ I'm Learning About Finite Automata Right Now, and Struggling with a Bit of the Math Notation. in the Explanation Here: , the User Explains That...
I'm learning about finite automata right now, and struggling with a bit of the math notation. In the explanation here: , the user explains that the automaton is in state $q$ before the transition, and some state $q'$ after the transition.
I read $q'$ as q-prime from what limited math I know, but I don't know why it's being called that. I've only ever understood prime in the context of calculus, where you have $f(n)$ or $f'(n)$ (read f prime of n), where $f'$ is the derivative of $f$.
Does this mean in the link above, state $q'$ is just a derivative of state $q$?
1 Answer
Here $q'$ is just being used to denote "another state".
Fairly frequently (outside of calculus), we use primes ($q'$), or tildes ($\tilde{q}$), or carats ($\hat{q}$), etc. over the same letter to signify another object of the same type. This improves readability, because there is a visual identification of that letter with that type of object.
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