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Re: General--Making the DisplayFormula style in ArticleModern look like Traditional

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg65004] Re: General--Making the DisplayFormula style in ArticleModern look like Traditional
  • From: Paul Abbott <paul at physics.uwa.edu.au>
  • Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 05:15:41 -0500 (EST)
  • Organization: The University of Western Australia
  • References: <durlbp$m3b$1@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

In article <durlbp$m3b$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
 Bill Rowe <readnewsciv at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I doubt the need will ever vanish entirely as long as there are hard copy texts.

But many hard copy texts are now available online. For example, 
Abramowitz and Stegun is at

  http://www.convertit.com/Go/ConvertIt/Reference/AMS55.ASP

and Numerical Recipes in C is at

  http://www.library.cornell.edu/nr/bookcpdf.html

Also, there is Google's project to digitize texts. For example,

A Treatise on the Theory of Bessel Functions by G Watson is at

  http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0521483913

It will not be that long before the mathematics in such online texts 
will be stored in a portable fashion (via MathML, say), so that you can 
paste mathematical expressions directly into Mathematica. As you would 
be aware, you can already paste TeX expressions into the front end. They 
are not always interpreted correctly as Mathematica input, which is not 
suprising, but often the resulting expression can be re-formatted so as 
to be useful.

Furthermore, MathWorld and the functions website (both with Mathematica 
online supplements), and Wikipedia are demonstrating that online 
references will supplant printed ones in the near future. As you are 
probably aware, the fact that you can search the functions site using 
Mathematica patterns makes it much more powerful than any existing 
special functions reference book.

> If the journal were only distributed electronically, then 
> there would be no issue. But since it is distributed via hard copy as well 
> there will always be a few wanting to try the ideas presented who do not have 
> the electronic version.

How many, I wonder?

If you get the printed version from a library or from a colleague then 
surely you can also get the electronic supplement. Also, in response to 
questions about items in TMJ, I have always responded by sending 
Notebooks, including columns in TMJ.

> >Well, all Premier Service subscribers can read TMJ for free. See
> >e.g.,
> 
> >http://www.wolfram.com/news/mathwire/mw-08-2005.html
> 
> >Universities with site-licenses may also have Premier Service (mine
> >has).
> 
> Surely, you aren't assuming all readers of the journal are also Premier 
> Service subscribers or that they all have access to university provided 
> tools?

I do not know how many readers of the journal are also Premier Service 
subscribers. It would be interesting to know how many correspondents on 
MathGroup are either subscribers to TMJ or have Premier Service. It 
would also be interesting to know how many readers of TMJ cannot access 
the electronic version.

> The choice of TraditionalForm versus StandardForm in the journal really 
> depends on the goals of the article. If the goal is to make the mathematics 
> as clear as possible to the widest possible audience, then TraditionalForm is 
> clearly the better choice. But if the goal is to elucidate how a particular 
> task can be done in Mathematica, StandardForm is the better choice as it more 
> clearly shows the underlying Mathematica code.

Like all language and programming issues, I think that your view on this 
topic depends upon your background and experience with the different 
formats.

Cheers,
Paul

_______________________________________________________________________
Paul Abbott                                      Phone:  61 8 6488 2734
School of Physics, M013                            Fax: +61 8 6488 1014
The University of Western Australia         (CRICOS Provider No 00126G)    
AUSTRALIA                               http://physics.uwa.edu.au/~paul


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