[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Unicode mathematical control characters
- To: math-font-discuss@cogs.susx.ac.uk
- Subject: Unicode mathematical control characters
- From: Hans Aberg <haberg@matematik.su.se>
- Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1998 23:10:21 +0100
- Cc: Taco Hoekwater <taco.hoekwater@wkap.nl>
- Content-Length: 2070
Is it allowable to submit math control characters to Unicode? After all,
Unicode has added new control characters such as line and paragraph
separators.
If one has a few math control characters, then a wide variety of math
symbols could be assembled by intelligent renderers; simpler programs could
display a default symbol instead for each control character it does not
know how to handle.
Suppose one has the following control characters
above
presup ______ sup
| |
before | over | after
|______|
presub below sub
for the positioning of a new symbol relative an old symbol, plus "logical
left parenthesis", "logical right parenthesis", "mathematical horizontal
tab", and "mathematical vertical tab".
Then these many common math symbols can be constructed, plus such things as
chemical symbols and such.
I can give some examples how this might work: Name the symbols
00 presup
01 above
02 sup
10 before
11 over
12 after
20 presub
21 below
22 sub
30 logical left parenthesis
31 logical right parenthesis
32 mathematical horizontal tab
33 mathematical vertical tab
Then for example, a matrix
( x y
u v )
could be described as
( x #32 y #33 u #32 v )
A summation sign "Sum" with the expression "n = 1" below could be described as
Sum #21 #30 n = 1 #31
The isotope 14 of carbon could be written
14
C
could described as
C #00 14
and so on.
This the does not preempt developments such as MathML and OpenMath, as one
still is only on the level of describing the logical relation between
mathematical characters, and not full-fledged symbols.
This is basically what is needed if one should be able to express simple
mathematical expressions in a letter of type Unicode text.
Hans Aberg
* Email: Hans Aberg <mailto:haberg@member.ams.org>
* Home Page: <http://www.matematik.su.se/~haberg/>
* AMS member listing: <http://www.ams.org/cml/>