# [texhax] Some questions on math mode

c.a.rowley at open.ac.uk c.a.rowley at open.ac.uk
Sun Mar 1 18:49:24 CET 2009


A mathematician writes ---

>> >It's a great shame that (as far as I know) no-one has yet reported a
>> >document from whence all of these things can be gleaned.

>> Let me copy a piece of text from The LaTeX Companion (sec 7.4 on p.
347):

mathematical packages.

However, whilst the following is correct:

"...(in math formulas) individual shapes convey specific information"

there is not very much consistency about what that information is amongst
mathematcians.  (Physicists tend to be more consistent and concerned about
the exact meanings of various typographical usages.)

Thus it says 'may' here:

"For example, bold upright letters may represent vectors..."

This is also a nice example as, whereas in physics, vectors are vectors are
vectors (maybe I exaggerate:-), in maths there are lots of uses of the term
'vectors' and these may, or may not, have different notational conventions.

So, you don't use \math* just because you are in math mode, but because you
need to set a specific meaning to a symbol, and this is (or might be) done
changing the font (the more appropriate one is up to you).

The question is more or less the same as asking "what is the difference
between \textit and \emph?" And the answer is that while \textit switch the
font to an italic shape, \emph
emphasizes
the text, what can be done with bold faces, underlines, colors, italics
(\textit, for instance) etc.

In time: the fonts associated to the comands \text* and \math* are
different, although in the Computer Modern families they are equal in
series and shapes. You can check this by loading a font package that does
not have support for math fonts (utopia, for example).

[]s
Ivan

I mean, using the Computer Modern font families

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 13:27, P. R. Stanley
<
prstanley at ntlworld.com
>
wrote:

>P. R. Stanley wrote:

>>Hi folks

>>1. What effect does placing a letter [A-Za-z] in math mode produce,

>>for example $x$ $A$?

>

>It sets the letter in maths italic, which is similar

>to (but not the same as) text italics.

>

>>Sorry to be a pain, what is the difference between math italic and

>>text italic? Where would one use math italic? For examplem is it

>>for something as undane as a variable -- $xy$?

>----------[snip]----------

>It's a great shame that (as far as I know) no-one has yet reported a

>document from whence all of these things can be gleaned.

well, with my questions and the answers from the list we may have

already started creating such a document. :-)

Cheers

Paul

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