Monday, January 1, 2007

Typing mathematics in blogs

I was talking to couple of friends about blogs in mathematics classrooms and they both asked "How do you typeset math in HTML". I had to say I had no idea. We use LaTeX, but that doesn't translate to HTML, unfortunately. So, instead of asking around, I tried to look it up. The is the first thing I discovered, courtesy of Clark Grubb , and I guess it should be accessible to high school and college students. Scroll down to find LaTeX lover's solution :)


The character entities can all be invoked via their numeric or alphabetic names. For example, both

x ∈ A and x ∈ A

will display

x ∈ A

A radical can be done. The HTML

&radic;<span style="text-decoration: overline">a + b</span>

will display as

a + b



Below is a partial list of the character entities specificied in the W3C Character Entity References for HTML 4. It includes most of the characters of interest to the mathematician.

Generic Character Entities


#alphasymIE6FFdescription
38amp&YYampersand
160nbsp
YYno-break space = non-breaking space
8194enspN?en space
8195emspN?em space
8201thinspN?thin space
8204zwnj
??zero width non-joiner
8205zwj
??zero width joiner
8211ndashYYen dash
8212mdashYYem dash
8230hellipYYhorizontal ellipsis = three dot leader


Mathematical Character Entities




#alphasymIE6FFdescription
60lt<YYless-than sign
62gt>YYgreater-than sign
176deg°YYdegree sign
177plusmn±YYplus-minus sign = plus-or-minus sign
215times×YYmultiplication sign
216OslashØYYlatin capital letter O with stroke = latin capital letter O slash
247divide÷YYdivision sign
8226bullYYbullet = black small circle
8465imageNYblackletter capital I = imaginary part
8472weierpNYscript capital P = power set = Weierstrass p
8476realNYblackletter capital R = real part symbol
8501alefsymNYalef symbol = first transfinite cardinal
8592larrYYleftwards arrow
8593uarrYYupwards arrow
8594rarrYYrightwards arrow
8595darrYYdownwards arrow
8596harrYYleft right arrow
8709emptyNYempty set = null set = diameter
8711nablaYYnabla = backward difference
8712isinYYelement of
8713notinNYnot an element of
8715niYYcontains as member
8719prodYYn-ary product = product sign
8721sumYYn-ary sumation
8722minusYYminus sign
8730radicYYsquare root = radical sign
8734infinYYinfinity
8736angYYangle
8746cupYYunion = cup
8747intYYintegral
8764simYYtilde operator = varies with = similar to
8773congNYapproximately equal to
8776asympYYalmost equal to = asymptotic to
8800neYYnot equal to
8801equivYYidentical to
8804leYYless-than or equal to
8805geYYgreater-than or equal to
8834subYYsubset of
8835supYYsuperset of
8836nsubNYnot a subset of
8838subeYYsubset of or equal to
8839supeYYsuperset of or equal to
8853oplusYYcircled plus = direct sum
8855otimesNYcircled times = vector product
8869perpYYup tack = orthogonal to = perpendicular
8901sdotNYdot operator
8968lceilNYleft ceiling = apl upstile
8969rceilNYright ceiling
8970lfloorNYleft floor = apl downstile
8971rfloorNYright floor
9001langNYleft-pointing angle bracket = bra
9002rangNYright-pointing angle bracket = ket


Greek Letter Character Entities

Both IE6 and Firefox implement all of these characters.

#alphasymdescription
913AlphaΑgreek capital letter alpha
914BetaΒgreek capital letter beta
915GammaΓgreek capital letter gamma
916DeltaΔgreek capital letter delta
917EpsilonΕgreek capital letter epsilon
918ZetaΖgreek capital letter zeta
919EtaΗgreek capital letter eta
920ThetaΘgreek capital letter theta
921IotaΙgreek capital letter iota
922KappaΚgreek capital letter kappa
923LambdaΛgreek capital letter lambda
924MuΜgreek capital letter mu
925NuΝgreek capital letter nu
926XiΞgreek capital letter xi
927OmicronΟgreek capital letter omicron
928PiΠgreek capital letter pi
929RhoΡgreek capital letter rho
there is no Sigmaf, and no U+03A2 character either
931SigmaΣgreek capital letter sigma
932TauΤgreek capital letter tau
933UpsilonΥgreek capital letter upsilon
934PhiΦgreek capital letter phi
935ChiΧgreek capital letter chi
936PsiΨgreek capital letter psi
937OmegaΩgreek capital letter omega
945alphaαgreek small letter alpha
946betaβgreek small letter beta
947gammaγgreek small letter gamma
948deltaδgreek small letter delta
949epsilonεgreek small letter epsilon
950zetaζgreek small letter zeta
951etaηgreek small letter eta
952thetaθgreek small letter theta
953iotaιgreek small letter iota
954kappaκgreek small letter kappa
955lambdaλgreek small letter lambda
956muμgreek small letter mu
957nuνgreek small letter nu
958xiξgreek small letter xi
959omicronοgreek small letter omicron
960piπgreek small letter pi
961rhoρgreek small letter rho
962sigmafςgreek small letter final sigma
963sigmaσgreek small letter sigma
964tauτgreek small letter tau
965upsilonυgreek small letter upsilon
966phiφgreek small letter phi
967chiχgreek small letter chi
968psiψgreek small letter psi
969omegaωgreek small letter omega

Immediately after stealing all this code from Clark (thanks a bunch), I ran into Flip Tomato's Blog. This was an absolute gem, as it contained the following link: mimeTeX. Score! I better get this running on my computers. If anybody has better solutions, let me know.




Technorati tags: , ,

16 comments:

Darren Kuropatwa said...

Great post! You've assembled an excellent resource that I'm going to include on all my class blogs via their del.icio.us boxes.

Thanks e!

e said...

Sure, no problem. I'm trying to see if I can get the mimethingy to work. See more here

e

Anonymous said...

Hello. And Bye.

Anonymous said...

Analogues are available?
So it is infinitely possible to discuss..

Anonymous said...

It is remarkable, rather useful message

Anonymous said...

Choice at you hard


I suggest you to come on a site where there is a lot of information on a theme interesting you. Hot Health

Anonymous said...

[url=http://kfarbair.com][img]http://www.kfarbair.com/_images/_photos/photo_big7.jpg[/img][/url]

בית מלון [url=http://www.kfarbair.com]כפר בעיר[/url] - אווירה כפרית, [url=http://www.kfarbair.com/about.html]חדרים[/url] מרווחים, שירות חדרים, אינטימיות, שלווה, [url=http://kfarbair.com/services.html]שקט[/url] . אנו מציעים שירותי אירוח מיוחדים כמו כן ישנו במקום שירות חדרים המכיל [url=http://www.kfarbair.com/eng/index.html]סעודות רומנטיות[/url] במחירים מיוחדים אשר מוגשות ישירות לחדרכם.

לפרטים אנא לפנות לאתר האינטרנט שלנו - [url=http://kfarbair.com]כפר בעיר[/url] [url=http://www.kfarbair.com/contact.html][img]http://www.kfarbair.com/_images/apixel.gif[/img][/url]

Anonymous said...

The information here is great. I will invite my friends here.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Nice brief and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you for your information.

Anonymous said...

Opulently I to but I about the brief should prepare more info then it has.

Anonymous said...

aerial handbooks market hurricane imperatives exporting acceptance agendas converting regarded jainmca
lolikneri havaqatsu

Anonymous said...

Infatuation casinos? experimentation this half-grown [url=http://www.realcazinoz.com]casino[/url] smack and think up maintain online casino games like slots, blackjack, roulette, baccarat and more at www.realcazinoz.com .
you can also holiday our untrained [url=http://freecasinogames2010.webs.com]casino[/url] oversee at http://freecasinogames2010.webs.com and augment the essential accurate incredibly misled !
another all the mode [url=http://www.ttittancasino.com]casino spiele[/url] script is www.ttittancasino.com , pro german gamblers, rake during magnanimous online casino bonus.

Anonymous said...

nice read. I would love to follow you on twitter.

Anonymous said...

Making money on the internet is easy in the undercover world of [URL=http://www.www.blackhatmoneymaker.com]blackhat ebook[/URL], You are far from alone if you haven’t heard of it before. Blackhat marketing uses alternative or little-understood avenues to generate an income online.

Anonymous said...

Amiable post and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you as your information.

Anonymous said...

i easily adore your own posting taste, very remarkable.
don't give up and also keep posting since it just simply well worth to look through it,
looking forward to browse through way more of your content pieces, kind regards!