Timeline for How should imaginary numbers be typeset?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 18, 2023 at 14:41 | comment | added | Pygmalion | As I see it, ISO 80000 wants to distinguish physical quantities from the rest by using italics for the former - which is a very important distinction, possibly the most important in physics (having for example units that must be regular font). And because mathematicians do not deal with these quantities, this makes no sense to them. | |
| Mar 18, 2023 at 14:33 | comment | added | Pygmalion | Ha, for me as a physicist - halfway between mathematicians and engineers - it would be interesting to know where the fault line is. I am very familiar with ISO 80000 (I strictly adhere to it when writing books) and find the demands therein very reasonable from a physicist's point of view. But perhaps physicists on the far theoretical side have a different opinion. | |
| Mar 18, 2017 at 12:15 | comment | added | barbara beeton | i didn't mean "misguided" in the sense of "completely wrong". i think it's actually a quite reasonable directive for engineers. what i feel was left out is a consideration of the scope, and failure to recognize the accepted practice of a different, well defined, subset of users. it really wouldn't have been too difficult to include a statement to that effect in the introduction to the standard. (thanks to you too for the civil discussion -- at least, i hope i've been civil about it.) | |
| Mar 18, 2017 at 4:51 | comment | added | Timtro | @barbarabeeton While I resent the word misguided, I don't disagree with you. I wouldn't expect pure mathematicians to conform to the ISO standard, and don't think I ever suggested it would even be a good idea if they did. I could say you've won the argument, but I don't think that we had one to begin with. I'm happy for a bit of friendly back-and-forth though. Thanks. | |
| Mar 17, 2017 at 19:53 | comment | added | barbara beeton | the point i'm trying to make is that, for pure mathematicians, the iso standard is simply misguided -- i doubt any mathematicians were involved in developing the standard. the overwhelming majority of participants in formal standards bodies are computer folk and engineers. (having participated in ansi and iso working groups for about ten years, i'm familiar with their makeup. it's too expensive for math societies to become full members. mostly computer manufacturers at the time i was active.) | |
| Mar 17, 2017 at 19:25 | comment | added | Timtro | @barbarabeeton Thanks. That's a nice reference, but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with it. I think we agree that, in mathematics, it is uncommon to see upright letters. I suspect we are of one mind on the matter, but correct me if I'm mistaken. | |
| Mar 17, 2017 at 13:26 | comment | added | barbara beeton | a very little searching uncovered what i think can be taken as authoritative for the publication practices of pure mathematicians. in the 1890 volume of acta mathematica (one of the journals that knuth used as a model for tex), the article by sophie kowalevski, Sur une propriété du système d'équations différentielles... clearly shows the italic "d" in expressions such as \frac{dp}{dt}. | |
| Mar 15, 2017 at 19:01 | comment | added | Timtro | @barbarabeeton It's been my experience that the lines between the use of upright vs italic are quite strongly geographical among both physicists and engineers. I have little to add about pure mathematicians, except to say that I agree with you. I think in mathematics there may be fewer notations that benefit from a broadly established convention, so there are fewer naming collisions. | |
| Apr 11, 2016 at 17:34 | comment | added | barbara beeton | please see my comment regarding "differential d" to the original question. the difference in practice is the difference between pure mathematicians and engineers. they each have their own good reasons. | |
| Apr 11, 2016 at 15:45 | history | answered | Timtro | CC BY-SA 3.0 |