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Re: Binary Relations, draft 1

At 00:50 +0000 1998/11/18, Chris Rowley wrote:
>> I think the reason (if any) to make the distinction of setting these upright
>> is that they are mulitletter combinations rather than that they are
>>functions.
>> This helps distinquish `sin' from the product of s, i, and n.
>
>And the symbol "a" from the word "a".
>
>That is indeed the way I was educated to understand the convention
>(note, *not* a rule, at least in pure maths).
>
>Maybe its a generational thing:-).  Every generation needs ots myhts!

I the old days of led typesetting, the mathematicain wrote the paper by
hand, or if available, on a typewriter. Then the typesetter has to
interpret that. Then the communications between the two does not work as
intended, and the corrections are not a convergent procedure.

Therefore the electronic typesetting system TeX was made.

So the answer is probabably that there are several different conflicting
conventions in place, some which belongs to the mathematicans, and some
which belongs to the typesetters.

  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/>