What do you use to write formulas here in Physics Forum?

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
6 replies · 4K views
yungman
Messages
5,741
Reaction score
291
I was here over 10yrs ago, at the time, I use LaTex. You still using that today or there's something new?

I am encouraging my grand daughter to come to this forum as she's going to college soon. I don't want to tell her to learn the wrong thing as it's been over 10yrs already.

Thanks

Alan
 
Physics news on Phys.org
LaTeX.
The "LaTeX Guide" is still in the bottom left corner of the reply window.
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Math100, berkeman and yungman
It is actually MathJax and has some differences from ordinary LaTeX. E.g. we do not have all libraries, hence not all possible symbols, and we cannot add them, and the main difference is that we use ## as inline LaTeX tags instead of $. LaTeX is basically a compiler, and the web-communication needs an interpreter.
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Math100
bhobba said:
I tend not to use LaTex, but I really should,

Thanks
Bill
I use AutoHotKey and laid a few dozen shortcuts on my keyboard. No accidental Shift Lock anymore, no accidental turning Num Lock off, and yes, many shortcuts for LaTeX. \left. \dfrac{d}{d}\right|_{} or \begin{pmatrix}\end{pmatrix} or \begin{align*}

\end{align*}
are available by Alt+u, Alt+m, and Alt+i. \langle \rangle is Ctrl+y. Just make sure not to overwrite the usual necessities like Ctrl+c or Ctrl+a. I can write Latex almost as fast as ordinary text with my little helpers.
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Informative
Likes   Reactions: dextercioby and bhobba
LLMs can easily convert text equations to latex, for example with Bard:
1697554362273.png

or:
$$\begin{align*}\frac{\partial \rho}{\partial t} + \nabla \cdot (\rho \mathbf{u}) &= 0, \\\rho \frac{\partial \mathbf{u}}{\partial t} + \rho (\mathbf{u} \cdot \nabla) \mathbf{u} &= -\nabla p + \nabla \cdot \mathbf{T} + \rho \mathbf{g},\end{align*}$$