There are a few peculiarities about the way math has to be written online. Besides the familiar + and -, there are a few symbols that may be unfamiliar:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
would be written sqrt(1-b*x^2) or √(1-b*x^2).
Einstein's famous formula
would be E=mc^2.
It is important that you use parentheses to make clear the order of operations. For example, 2/x+1 is not the same as 2/(x+1). The first expression says: divide two by x, then add one. The second expression says: divide 2 by the quantity x+1.
The order of operations is
^ and sqrt
* and /
+ and - .
Large numbers are written in scientific notation, using powers of 10. For instance, 100 is written as 102 or 1E+2, one billion is written as 109 or 1E+9. Such notation is also useful in describing things such as the National Debt ;-)
Limits are written as follows:
lim(x-->0) [ f(x)]
Write infinity as oo:
two lowercase 'O' in a smaller font:
lim(x-->oo)
[1/x] = 0
Derivatives can be written as
quotients:
dy/dx. Integrals present more of a problem. I suggest
S f(x)
dx
for the indefinite integral of the
function f(x) over x. The limits for definite integrals need to be
spelled
out explicitly.