Latex & stuff

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Latex is the international standard for typesetting mathematics. Text processors like MS Word or Open office have equation editors, but almost every time you try and transport a document containing equations from a computer to another one, you’ll be surprised to see that the other computer may interpret wrong the given equations, may require additional packages for viewing them, or your initial formatting might look really bad. Writing in latex is not WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), and this might cause some troubles in the beginning. The idea is that you have to write some commands in a tex editor (somewhat like programming) and then compile the file to get the desired result. Although, when you get used to Latex, it becomes a great help, whenever you need to write something including mathematical equations in a document on your computer, on a math forum or on WordPress.com. The advantage is that the program produces the same result on every computer, result which can be saved as pdf or dvi and can be viewed properly on any operating system. The formulas and fonts are nice and clean, there are many spacing, formatting, numbering, aligning options that can produce a top quality math article. Latex is considered as a standard among mathematicians, and if you consider becoming one, you definitely need to learn this.  I will not present here a tutorial for using Latex, since there are many other places where you can find such tutorials (try Google first):

For using Latex on WordPress in posts or comments, you have to put latex formulas between the signs $latex and $, for example:

$latex \displaystyle \int_0^\infty e^{-x^2}dx $ will show like \displaystyle \int_0^\infty e^{-x^2}dx

There are some bugs you can encounter when writing latex formulas on WordPress. A quite comprehensive list can be found on Terrence Tao’s blog, at http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/wordpress-latex-bug-collection-drive/

For building exact and complicated mathematics/physics diagrams, you can use MetaPost. This is similar to Latex, because you need to program the figure and then compile it, but the results are awesome, and I consider this much easier to learn than other Illustrating programs. I am quite new at this, but my first few drawings turned out very nice. A short tutorial can be found here and an online MetaPost compiler can be found here.

You can draw figures for geometry problems using Geogebra. It is a free software, with great capabilities of drawing all sorts of geometrical figures, angles, lines circles, regular polygons, performs rotations, inversions, translations, etc. You can find it at the Geogebra website: http://www.geogebra.org/cms/

  1. anil
    September 23, 2020 at 7:39 pm
    Reply

    sorry word is three times faster vand real time you can define shortcut keys using alt and control for greek letters symbols. you can define macros using function keys by using equation editor. in addition you can use autocorrect entries li is linearly independent if u define autocorrdct. you can type 600 pages math book in word much fAster than latex. since u dont code u concentrate more on math.
    latex is outdated concept by peop,le wh did not know how to use word tried it . by accident it became popular. its a cancer to maths
    as it is math is conceived tough by most. in addition one more layer of diffciulty. u can online lecture in word in real time not possible in latex
    very useless if u know word welll
    now in 2 minutes u can make pdf in windows transfer pdf file

    • beni22sof
      September 23, 2020 at 9:29 pm
      Reply

      Thank you for your comment. I understand your point of view, but the points you raise all depend on your experience. You may say that you can write in Word three times as fast, but that only means you don’t really know how to write in Latex. After more than 10 years of experience I know almost all commands I need to use when writing a document. With a powerful latex editor like TexStudio you have autocomplete for all commands and environments, so typing a Greek letter is as fast as your Ctrl+Alt shortcut. For me writing in Latex is not slower than word, on the contrary.

      As for concentrating more on math than coding, again you are not used to Latex so you need to think. When you are proficient with Latex you don’t need to think about the formulas you write. You just need to know what you want to write and you do it! Compiling a Latex document is just a key away and is instant.

      Latex is not outdated and is not only used by those who don’t know word. It’s just the way many mathematicians write math. As a matter of fact, many students in mathematics or engineering start writing in Latex as soon as the start their studies and become proficient after a few years. And the fact that it was invented long ago and it is still widely used says something about its value.

      I am aware that my arguments may seem subjective for someone who doesn’t know Latex. If you have your own way of writing math which is efficient for you go for it. Nevertheless, Latex is a powerful tool which is efficient for those who invested enough time to know it thoroughly.

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