7 Mathematical Formulas

Mathematics is the soul of TEX. It was because the setting of mathematical formulas is so complicated in normal printing, not to mention on a typewriter, that Donald Knuth invented his text formatting system. On the other hand, the soul of LATEX is logical markup. Nevertheless, all the power of TEX’s math setting is also available in LATEX, offering an unbeatable combination.

In this chapter we confine ourselves to the elements of mathematical typesetting available in standard LATEX. The simplifications and additional elements provided by AMS-LATEX are reserved for Chapter 15.

Mathematical formulas are produced by typing special descriptive text. This means that LATEX must be informed that the following text is to be ...

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