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I want to define a function that outputs, say, an arbitrary number of complex coordinates on a Riemann sphere, $z_i$.

In Mathematica, I have been using Subscript[z,i] to label the individual coordinates, but there seems to be issues with the Subscript function - for example, Subscript[z,i]Subscript[k,j] - Subscript[z,i]Subscript[k,j] does not seem to always evaluate to zero as it should.

So my question is, what is the best way of labeling variables?

I don't want to use zi, because its not as nice to read. Is there any reason I couldn't use z[i], for example? Is there a standard way to do it?

Here is an example of a function I have defined:

PTFactor[m_] := Product[(Subscript[z, i]-Subscript[z, i+1]),{i,1,m-1}]*(Subscript[z, m]-Subscript[z, 1]);

Where m is any integer.

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  • $\begingroup$ I think using z[i] instead of Subscript might be a good idea in the long term (not as nice to read, but much better to manipulate). But I wonder if you are really correct with your statement that the given example would "somtimes" not evaluate to zero. I think it should and would consider it a bug if it wouldn't. Can you give an example when this happens? $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 20:23

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Depending on what you want to do, z[i], which defines your sequence as a function with integer domain), can work fine. For example:

pt[m_] := Product[(z[i] - z[i + 1]), {i, 1, m - 1}]*(z[m] - z[1]);

For instance, pt[2] is 

(z[1] - z[2]) (-z[1] + z[2])
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