Improving the posting frame

Fredrik

I was not joking. Hm, let's try again... !! is the semi-factorial function. I completely forgot about that, and I haven't had a reason to use it since the 90's. << Can mean "much less than". Didn't realize that either when I wrote the post. (The fact that the symbol is so small could have something to do with it). The stuff I'm interested in almost never requires me to plug numbers into equations, so I haven't used that since the 90's either. And LOL, the "dagger" symbol for the adjoint, is used all the time in QM. I must have been really confused when I wrote that post. When I was searching my brain for uses for that symbol, it didn't even occur to me to look for situations where that symbol is used as an exponent. I just didn't see a use for expressions like [itex]A\dagger[/itex] or [itex]A\dagger B[/itex] and ended the brain search there. A partial explanation is that the past two years or so, I've been using the mathematicians' notation [itex]A^*[/itex] instead of [itex]A^\dagger[/itex], but it was still a pretty major brain fart. This is really weird. I'm not that old.

Hm, maybe we should include the † then. It's not as important as · × ≤ ≥ → ℝ ℂ, but I can see how a lot of people would find it useful. I'm guessing that there's no easy way to do this, but if there is, I think a click on that symbol should cause [sup]†[/sup] to be typed, because it's only used exponentiated. At least that's the way it seems to me, but maybe my brain is still malfunctioning.

Regarding the ∂ symbol, it can be used for the boundary ∂E of a set E in a topological space, and in differential geometry (especially in the context of relativity) the μth partial derivative operator is often written as ∂_μ. As tiny-tim said, people might prefer to write ∂y/∂x rather than [itex]\frac{\partial y}{\partial x}[/itex]. So I think it should be included, if it doesn't push out something more important. I have never used it myself, but I can see how people might want to use it.

Fredrik

· × didn't make it. But thanks for adding the other ones I suggested.

tiny-tim

seconded

at present, the symbol is inserted and highlighted, it would be easier if it was inserted and then the cursor was placed after it

Fredrik

I'm thirding that suggestion. It's not too hard to work around the problem. Just hit the right arrow key after clicking a symbol. But if it's easy to change, then I think we should.

vela

I noticed the posting area tends to run over on the righthand side with the typical browser window size I use in both Safari and Firefox, while there's an awful lot of wasted space on the left. Perhaps the posting area could be centered within the column rather than having a fixed left margin.

One other suggestion would be to use a different font for the Greek letters. With the current font, alpha looks like a lowercase A and pi looks like a lowercase N, which has caused confusion in the past.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Fredrik

Greg, do you think you can add × to the list? I use that symbol more than any of the ones that are on that list now. It's used for Cartesian products and in phrases like "m×n matrix". The symbol · would be very useful too. If you don't want to add another line of characters, then just remove one or two of the lesser Greek letters.

I wouldn't use α or χ, because they don't look enough like ##\alpha## and ##\chi##, and I always LaTeX the symbols ∂ ∫ Ʃ ∏, so I don't find them useful either. I don't know if other people do.

Greg Bernhardt

I don't offhand see it as an HTML entity. That isn't chi?

I like Serena

Here's a couple of symbols that are missing with their html equivalents:

φ: &phi;
×: &times;
·: &centerdot;
∈: &in;

And, if only to please Mike: ;)
ξ: &xi;

Greg Bernhardt

&times; has been added to the list

Fredrik

Cool, thanks.

tiny-tim

i use ∂ ∫ and ∑ a lot (though i can type them on my mac keyboard, so i don't use the box)

can we please have φ (the box's ∅ looks terrible in equations ), and ∫, and ∇ ?

Fredrik

∅ is the empty set.

I agree that φ would be useful (occasionally).



I think I use each of these four symbols more than all the the others combined:

≤ → ℝ ×

These ones are all pretty useful too (the · is not currently on the list)

≥ ℂ ∞ ≈ ≠ ε δ ψ · ∅

I also use these occasionally:

β γ ρ θ λ (I would mention φ here, if it had been on the list).

I don't think I ever use any of the others.

Hm...is there an ##\hbar##?

NascentOxygen

➊ ϕ
➋ ħ ћ ℏ
➌ Ɣ

Fredrik

tiny-tim, the "Learning LaTeX" link in your signature could use an update.

tiny-tim

looks ok to me …

and the Learning Latex sticky

actually, with the new box, i hardly ever use my signature

btw, is the box invisible on some devices (eg phones)?

Fredrik

You're linking to the old sticky (which is no longer a sticky), but at least it contains a link to the new one. I just thought that you might want to link directly to the new one, but you can of course link to whatever you want to.

tiny-tim

two links are still a link!