[texhax] theorem macros

[Philip TAYLOR]

Dear Barbara, copy Grant :

Barbara Beeton wrote:
> you have to declare theorems with
>
>    \newtheorem{<name of environment>}{<heading text>}[<reference number>]
>
> where <name of environment> is what you will
> use with
>
>    \begin{theorem}
>    ...
>    \end{theorem}

As a non-mathematician, that made no sense at all to me (it would
seem at first sight that <name of environment> is "theorem" in
the examples you cite), so I used TeXdoc as suggested.  That
told me :

> The \newtheorem command has two mandatory arguments; the first one is the
> environment name that the author would like to use for this element; the second one
> is the heading text. For example,
> \newtheorem{lem}{Lemma}
> means that instances in the document of
> \begin{lem} Text text ... \end{lem}
> will produce
> Lemma 1. Text text …

which (to this uninformed and totally insignificant individual) made
a great deal more sense.  So might it be clearer to express the idea
not as :

 > you have to declare theorems with
 >
 >    \newtheorem{<name of environment>}{<heading text>}[<reference number>]
 >
 > where <name of environment> is what you will
 > use with
 >
 >    \begin{theorem}
 >    ...
 >    \end{theorem}

but rather as

>> you have to declare theorems with
>>
>>    \newtheorem {<name of environment>}{<heading text>}[<reference number>]
>>
>> where <name of environment> is what you will use with
>>
>>    \begin {<name of environment>}
>>    ...
>>    \end {<name of environment>}

** Phil.