A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Astronomy and Astrophysics » Research
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

upright Greek letters for constants as opposed to variables



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
  #1  
Old April 26th 20, 11:05 PM posted to sci.astro.research
Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 273
Default upright Greek letters for constants as opposed to variables

Some journals require upright Greek letters for constants as opposed to
variables, for example $\upi$ when used to denote 3.14159... as opposed
to a variable ($\pi$ is sometimes used to denote parallax in astronomy,
for instance). (Some journals define \upi as "upright pi", \upi as
"upright i", and so on.)

I certainly agree that LABELS should be upright (though they are usually
Latin not Greek) and not italic to distinguish them from variables, e.g.
$T_{mathrm{eff}}$ for effective temperature or $\rho_{textrm{g}}$ for
gas density, say, as opposed to $G_{\mu\nu}$ where $\mu$ and $\nu$ are
not constants but variables.

And it is not just Greek letters. For example, e for the Euler number
or i for the square root of -1 should also not be in math italic, to
distinguish them from variables. I tend to agree with that as well.
Also, units should be upright, e.g. 5 m and not $5m$ for 5 metres.

On the other hand, I have never seen the gravitational constant $G$,
which is even by definition a constant and not a variable, written
upright. Ditto for the Hubble constant $H$ and so on.

Or is there a difference between mathematical constants and physical
constants?

Perhaps because standard (La)TeX provides Greek letters only in math
italic, upright Greek letters are less common than upright Latin
letters, even when used in the same way (labels, units, symbols which
are not variables).

When writing for a specific journal, one usually has to follow the house
style. However, if there is no rule, I prefer to do what is generally
deemed to be correct. What is generally deemed to be correct here?
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
pre 2006 catalogued FASTT candidate variables in Nicholson's"uncatalogued" red variables' paper newvariables Amateur Astronomy 2 July 4th 09 09:41 PM
Greek letters. Tom McDonald Astronomy Misc 0 May 27th 06 02:15 AM
Greek letters. Tom McDonald Amateur Astronomy 0 May 27th 06 02:15 AM
Shifting Constants? Double-A Misc 9 January 14th 06 05:17 PM
Upright image in reflector Ducky Amateur Astronomy 6 August 3rd 05 06:33 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 03:33 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.