
UnicodeMath: a nearly plain-text encoding of mathematics, v3.1 (2016) [pdf] - nerdponx
http://www.unicode.org/notes/tn28/UTN28-PlainTextMath-v3.1.pdf
======
doomrobo
I think one would still be better off writing their plain text math in LaTeX.
Firstly, it can be rendered into a more legible format by a myriad of online
and offline tools. Secondly, from experience, it seems that people who are
around math often enough are generally capable of parsing snippets of LaTeX
just fine. I'd argue that the example on page 7 of the PDF

W_δ₁ρ₁σ₂^3β = U_δ₁ρ₁^3β+1/8π^2 ∫_α₁^α₂dα'₂
[(U_δ₁ρ₁^2β-α'₂U_ρ₁σ₂^1β)/U_ρ₁σ₂^0β]

is illegible in both UnicodeMath and LaTeX. Furthermore, typing that out was a
huge pain in the ass, even being comfortable with that region of Vim digraphs.
I typed it out in LaTeX using the rendered output as a reference and found it
was faster, and it compiled on the first try. I really don't think this format
is worth it.

~~~
anjbe
I’ve always liked troff/eqn, which had a focus on human readable equation
input. Here’s that example in eqn: verbose but very natural, almost how you
would say it out loud.

    
    
        .EQ
        W sub {delta sub 1 rho sub 1 sigma sub 2} sup {3 beta} = 
        U sub {delta sub 1 rho sub 1} sup {3 beta} +
        1 over {8 pi sup 2} int from alpha sub 1 to alpha sub 2 d alpha prime sub 2
        left [ { U sub {delta sub 1 rho sub 1} sup {2 beta} -
        alpha prime sub 2 U sub {rho sub 1 sigma sub 2} sup {1 beta} }
        over U sub {rho sub 1 sigma sub 2} sup {0 beta} right ]
        .EN
    

Even better if you use a little bit of Unicode (which any modern troff
supports):

    
    
        .EQ
        W sub {δ sub 1 ρ sub 1 σ sub 2} sup {3 β} = 
        U sub {δ sub 1 ρ sub 1} sup {3 β} +
        1 over {8 pi sup 2} int from α sub 1 to α sub 2 d α prime sub 2
        left [ { U sub {δ sub 1 ρ sub 1} sup {2 β} - α prime sub 2 U sub {ρ sub 1 σ sub 2} sup {1 β} }
        over U sub {ρ sub 1 σ sub 2} sup {0 β} right ]
        .EN

~~~
tannhaeuser
You might also like SGML which has the SHORTREF built-in mechanism for
defining custom Wiki syntax and casual math. Gives you the better part of
troff with formal built-in up-conversion to presentational MathML or other
markup.

The author of GNU roff (groff), James Clark, later became _the_ SGML guru.

------
z1mm32m4n
Probably some people are wondering why they might consider β simpler than
\beta in a plain text environment.

Many editors have shortcuts for entering a wide range of Unicode characters.
For example with Vim digraphs[1], you can type β <C-k>b*. Then you get the
benefit of reading the actual character, not the LaTeX command.

[1] :help digraph

------
ivanbakel
This would be a lot more digestable if it didn't harp on about how much better
it is than Tex math. I'd prefer a spec that stood its ground and pushed its
own merits.

~~~
ygra
I'd bet the kneejerk reaction to any math notation would be »Why would anyone
use this when we have TeX?« (heck, it happened here _despite_ the
comparisons). Comparing to the status quo or prior art is hardly out of place,
I'd say. The author certainly didn't invent this without looking at other math
notation approaches first, and even met with Knuth.

------
kutkloon7
If such a spec was released before LaTeX was released, it might have stood a
chance. Now everyone is used to LaTeX, no-one will switch, because there is
simply too little benefit.

While I appreciate the effort that has gone into it, and I can definitely see
the merit in some cases, there are some awkward unicode characters that you
need to use; very inconvenient.

------
jxy
Are there any programs that can render unicode maths correctly? Looks like we
don't need MathML anymore.

~~~
whyever
SymPy has Unicode output, you can try it here: live.sympy.org

Note how "Symbol('alpha')" and "Symbol('x_a')" get converted to unicode. There
are limitations though, "Symbol('x_b')" does not work, because the is no
underscore "b".

You can also try fancier things like "Eq(Symbol('gamma'), 1/sqrt(1 -
Symbol('v') __2)) ".

(Make sure to enable unicode output, the default is latex.)

~~~
yorwba
Interestingly, Unicode has subscript versions of most of the Latin alphabet:
ₐbcdₑfgₕᵢⱼₖlₘₙₒₚqᵣₛₜᵤᵥwₓyz. I wonder why they don't complete the set.

~~~
ygra
Because Unicode is not about completing arbitrary sets people would like to
see. It's about encoding characters either having appeared in other encodings
(to allow legacy encodings to be easily convertible to Unicode), or characters
that are in actual use. The existing subscript and superscript characters were
never intended to provide a full Latin alphabet (which subset, anyway?). Some
are used in IPA, some are used in other contexts or scripts, but in general
nothing actually requires all Latin letters. There's also some Greek, some
Cyrillic, a few Hanzi, and a bunch of characters that are not used in any
script. Which set would you like to »complete« again and to what end? If it's
just about having something that looks the part, then markup is preferred over
plain text. The existing set serves a number of purposes but none of them are
lacking more characters. Usually there has to be a fairly convincing need for
encoding more characters and »I'd like to be able to write some text
completely in subscript or superscript« doesn't tend to be a convincing
argument.

~~~
zokier
I'm pretty sure that all ASCII alphanumeric characters have been widely used
in at least subscript format in science, engineering and maths. Probably
wouldn't be too difficult to find use of most, if not all, greek letters used
as subscripts too in STEM literature

So I'd say subscript characters definitely fall into category "characters that
are in actual use".

~~~
ygra
But math is exactly one that needs a higher-level format than plain text, as
is evident by things like TeX or, well, the paper being discussed here. I'd
argue that there are few scientists who actually write in plain text without
any higher-level markup.

~~~
whyever
Funnily enough, the symbol for the newly announced particle cannot be written
down with Unicode.

