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meta NEW MATH



meta NEW MATH 

Dear Berthold,

      To encourage you toward making a "meta" or 
"multimaster" version of Lucida New Math that makes the 
10, 7, 5 script proportioning of Knuth possible, I want to
mention that there is a distinct goal that one 
can thereby hope to realise for the first time with TeX.

      Thus far, I believe, every TeX math system suffers
from the following evident deformity: in a math
expression such as $x_N$, the subscripted capital
letter is bigger than the small letter to which it is
subscripted.  Because of the relatively great x-height
of the Lucida Bright typeface it turns out that the  N
would for the first time become smaller than the  x:
--- the subscripted N height would be 7 units while
that of the x would be greater at 7.3 units. In Computer
Modern the subscripted N height is 7 units less than the
x-height 6.3 units.  

      Un short, a meta version of Lucida New Math would
have a distinct qualitive advantage to boast of.

      Yours 

        Laurent S


PS:  I said in contemplating more restricted size changes for
scripts:

  > Then there was then a problem that in $x_N$, the N  is
  > about as big as the x

This is understatement for MathTimes. In fact, the N is
noticeably bigger! With the 10pt, 7.6pt and
6.0pt scheme you recommend for MathTimes, the height ratio
is (x-height):(_N-height) = 6.8 : 7.6, a bit worse than
the 6.3 : 7.0 we saw above for CM.