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Re: Binary Relations, draft 1



On the Greek style fonts used in math, I figure they should come in four
different variations: Upright/italics and non-bold/bold.

The thing is that an empirical "standard" or general principle for
typesetting pure math seems to be this:
   Entities that are considered constant should be typeset upright.
   Entities that are considered variable should be typeset slanted/italics.

So names such as "sin", "cos", etc, should be typeset upright, because
these are constants, and in f(x) both "f" and "x" should be typeset slanted
as they are considered variables.

Then numbers such e, i, pi, should really be typeset upright because
nowadays these are considered constants, but they are often typeset in
italics because from the beginning they were variables.

However, returning to the original question, if one would want to use
upright shape for the number pi = 3.14..., then that shape is normally not
available. (One can also use pi to denote say a projection, in which case
it should be typeset in italics.)

So therefore, if one should be able to express this semantical difference,
the math Greek symbols should also be available in upright shape.

  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/>