Math Formulae ____________

There are three environments that put LaTeX in math mode:

math
For Formulae that appear right in the text.

displaymath
For Formulae that appear on their own line.

equation
The same as the displaymath environment except that it adds an equation number in the right margin.
The math environment can be used in both paragraph and LR mode, but the displaymath and equation environments can be used only in paragraph mode. The math and displaymath environments are used so often that they have the following short forms:
\(...\) or $ ... $
instead of \begin{math}...\end{math}

\[...\]
instead of \begin{displaymath}...\end{displaymath}

Sections

Subscripts & Superscripts

LaTeX handles superscripted superscripts and all of that stuff in the natural way. It even does the right thing when something has both a subscript and a superscript.

_{exp}
To get an expression exp to appear as a subscript, you just type _{exp}.

^{exp}
To get exp to appear as a superscript, you type ^{exp}.


Spacing in Math Mode

In a math environment, LaTeX ignores the spaces you type and puts in the spacing that it thinks is best. LaTeX formats mathematics the way it's done in mathematics texts. If you want different spacing, LaTeX provides the following four commands for use in math mode:

\; - a thick space
\: - a medium space
\, - a thin space
\! - a negative thin space


Math Miscellany

The following is a list of miscellaneous math commands:
\cdots
Produces a horizontal ellipsis where the dots are raised to the centre of the line.

\ddots
Produces a diagonal ellipsis.

\frac{num}{den}
Produces the fraction num divided by den.

\ldots
Produces an ellipsis. This command works in any mode, not just math mode.

\overbrace{text}
Generates a brace over text.

\overline{text}
Causes the argument text to be overlined.

\sqrt[root]{arg}
Produces the square root of its argument. The optional argument, root, determines what root to produce, i.e., the cube root of x+y would be typed as $\sqrt[3]{x+y}$.

\underbrace{text}
Generates text with a brace underneath.

\underline{text}
Causes the argument text to be underlined. This command can also be used in paragraph and LR modes.

\vdots
Produces a vertical ellipsis.

LaTeX2e manual: v1.0 - (2/95).