👉 Okay, let’s tackle this wonderfully weird little squiggle—namely, what we affectionately (and perhaps delusionally, frankly, of my own volition here!) call a "operatorname{pmatrix}".
Now, before you start picturing a tiny, disgruntled parenthesis jammed into a square… nope! Forget that. We are absolutely not messing with the postal service's efficiency. operatorname{pmatrix}’s Actually A Concept, Okay? 🤯 Seriously. When we write this pointy-bordered, slightly smug shape (amsmath package is your friend here for pretty rendering), we don't actually mean to draw a square, unless we are exceptionally young and have a very steady hand. Instead, it’s a glyph . A typographical, almost aggressively precise, symbol that means… you guessed it! It represents the beginning and end of a rectangular 2 dimensional ordered tuple (a fancy way of saying a row or a column of numbers). Basically, it's like writing "the start here. And then... this too. Stop right now!" in really pointy lettering. 3 dimensional tuples have that 3 sided glyph 3operatorname{pmatrix}! 3 3 3! You are never as good at the notation as I am. It's an unspoken, almost a mathematical religion, and you should treat it with respect. Okay, Now Let's Get Edgy (…and Slightly Creepy).... 8️⃣—
