Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics

message: Do you have to put spaces on both sides of an inequality? Also, if there is only one value, should a space be added there as well? Purplemountainmantalk contribs 20:10, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, write "1 < 2" not "1<2" (just as "x = 1" not "x=1"); LaTeX does it correctly automatically, of course.  I don't understand the second question. --JBL (talk) 20:15, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  If I'm understanding correctly, the second question is whether e.g. ">2" or "> 2" is preferred, for example in an infobox. -- Beland (talk) 18:00, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I see.  My instinct is that such constructions should almost always be avoided, but maybe I could be convinced otherwise in a discussion of particular examples. JBL (talk) 18:50, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  You can see examples of one-parameter greater-than or less-than in Unmanned aerial vehicle#Classification types (table), North West England#Cities and towns (section headings), Nine men's morris (infobox), and Anthrax (infobox). -- Beland (talk) 02:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inequality signs 

message: Subsections are strangely numbered in this article; for example, there is a section 7.6 but no sections 7.1, ..., 7.5. Apparently, this seems the case for other pages of the Manual of Style, and also in the name space "Wikipedia". Is this intentional or the result of a (new?) bug? D.Lazard (talk) 12:19, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see it. Someone having fun on April Fools? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subsection numbering 

message: On Talk:Inequality (mathematics)/Archive 1#Renderization of "not greater than" symbol,  reports problems rendering , with Chrome version 123.0.6312.106 on Windows 10 version 22H2:
(The first three are all just the Unicode character not displaying properly.)
I assume this be added to the list of characters that should only be expressed with ? Are there any related characters for which anyone is also experiencing rendering problems? -- Beland (talk) 02:37, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Imo, the most problematic issue is with the symbol for function composition (∘ or ○). On some devices such as Safari on my laptop, the first one is so small that it is easily confused with an interpunct, and the second one has the same size as \circ (\circ). On other devices, such as Safari on my iPhone, the first has the same size as \circ, and the second one is much larger. I am thus in favor of using only latex for function composition, but this implies to edit a lot of articles. D.Lazard (talk) 16:36, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  The nice thing about a latex \circ is that it can stretch to fit whatever size you need. EEng 16:44, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

text:  I only see 231 articles with "∘". There are 597 articles with "○". It would be very easy for me to change all the instances of "∘" to "○". Would that solve the problem of visual confusion? -- Beland (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: This would deserve more discussion, since, on my smartphone, "○" is much too large. My opinion is that only latex should be used when the symbol for function composition is used. D.Lazard (talk) 09:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, I've added all three characters to the list, recommending LaTeX markup instead. -- Beland (talk) 23:18, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

text: No, the big circle is inappropriately large. –jacobolus (t) 14:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

text: If you'd like to discuss that with the responsible parties, see  (where one developer said the server side generally doesn't host fonts) or  (where one person recommending asking Microsoft to fix their fonts). Beland (talk) 23:22, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, please voice your concerns at the bug tracker, because the report was dismissed as not a technical issue. fgnievinski (talk) 18:19, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not-greater-than rendering problems 

message: I have just discovered using  for fractional exponents and subscripts (which is what MOS:FRAC and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Fractions require for science and math articles) doesn't really work visually, at least on my computer - the surrounding text is easily confused as part of the numerator or denominator and sometimes it's just unclear that the fraction is supposed to be a superscript or subscript at all. I'm wondering what other people see and what the preferred solution for this would be, if it is indeed really a problem? Here are some examples with  style applied:
*  for subscript: 
*  for superscript: 
*  for subscript: 
*  for superscript: 
* Unicode character for subscript: 
* Unicode character for superscript: 
*  with subscript: x^{\frac{1}{2}}
*  with superscript: x_{\frac{1}{2}}
Perhaps the MOS should be changed to use one of these in this sort of situation? Only a few fractions are available in precomposed Unicode characters, so that's probably not a complete solution, especially if we want visual consistency. That leaves the option of partially lifting the science-and-math ban on  which would be slightly visually inconsistent (and TBH not all that well-rendered, either), and the option of switching any problematic expressions to LaTeX-style markup. Or perhaps someone has another clever solution or more illuminating examples or other considerations? -- Beland (talk) 08:56, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: In sub- or superscripts, it's usually best to use a horizontal fraction, as in  or , but LaTeX works better still: , . –jacobolus (t) 10:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, nice, that looks way better and is already contemplated by the MOS. I've added a note about that situation, since it seems to occur a lot. (I'm systematically getting rid of the precomposed characters where they are not allowed). Many thanks! -- Beland (talk) 16:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fractional exponents and subscripts