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I've been seeing functions written with curly brackets recently.

Example 1: X is a random variable denoting the number of heads in 3 coin tosses. $$P\{X=0\}=P\{(T, T, T)\}=\frac{1}{8}$$ Both the probabilty function defined on X and defined on the sample space use $f\{\}$ notation instead of $f()$ notation.

Example 2: Weighted activity selection problem:

$$MaxWeight(n)=max\{w(A_n)+MaxWeight(p(n)),MaxWeight(n-1)\}$$ The max function here uses $f\{\}$.

I assume this is syntactic sugar for writing functions who's arguments are sets and avoiding nested brackets like $P(\{X=0\})$, but I've not been able to find any information on this anywhere.

If someone could clarify or link/point towards a definition of this I would be grateful.

Thankyou

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    It doesn't seem to me that $\{\}$ are being used as an alternative to $()$ here, but rather that $()$ are being eliminated as a way of making the text more readable. For example if I were to write something like $P(\{X\geq(...)\})$ then maybe y would just write $P\{X\geq(...)\}$. – 2017-01-17

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