Biolex2

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Mathematical notation issues

Hello. Please notice this difference:

n*(n-1)

n(n − 1)

In non-TeX mathematical notation, variables should be italicized by digits and punctuation should not. A minus sign rather than a stubby littly hyphen should be used and should be preceded and followed by a space (and similarly with "+", "=", etc. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics). I usually make the spaces non-breakable with binary operators like "+", "×", etc.

I regard the use of an asterisk for ordinary multiplication as something to be done only when the available character set is severely limited, as on an old-fashioned typewriter. You can write:

nm

n·m or n · m

n×m (not to be confused with nxm) or n × m

Michael Hardy (talk) 19:25, 6 November 2008 (UTC)