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Math for the Masses

Odd as it may sound, I miss all the equations from my days in grad school, so I decided that what WordPress.com needed most was a hot, niche feature that maybe 17 people would use regularly:

\LaTeX

For those that don’t know, \LaTeX is a typesetting system particularly well suited for documents of a mathematical persuasion. It’s used almost exclusively by many technical, scientific and mathematical disciplines both in academia and industry. It also looks really good; I, among many, consider Donald E. Knuth a personal hero.

For those that do know, it’s now ridiculously easy to include inline \LaTeX formulas in your blog posts.

The syntax is reminiscent of \LaTeX‘s inline math mode: $latex your-latex-code-here$, and it allows you to produce most any equation. For example, the following code

$latex i\hbar\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\left|\Psi(t)\right>=H\left|\Psi(t)\right>$

yields

i\hbar\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\left|\Psi(t)\right>=H\left|\Psi(t)\right>.

Pretty sweet, huh?

To further whet your appetite, these few standards show a bit more about what’s now possible on WordPress.com.

\displaystyle\bar{M}=\frac{kT}{\Xi}\sum_N\left(\frac{\partial Q_N}{\partial D}\right)_{V,T}\lambda^N

G_{ab}^{(1)} = -\frac{1}{2}\partial^c\partial_c \bar{\gamma}_{ab} + \partial^c\partial_{(b}\bar{\gamma}_{a)c} -\frac{1}{2}\eta_{ab}\partial^c\partial^d\bar{\gamma}_{cd} = 8\pi T_{ab}

\displaystyle P_\nu^{-\mu}(z)=\frac{\left(z^2-1\right)^{\frac{\mu}{2}}}{2^\mu \sqrt{\pi}\Gamma\left(\mu+\frac{1}{2}\right)}\int_{-1}^1\frac{\left(1-t^2\right)^{\mu -\frac{1}{2}}}{\left(z+t\sqrt{z^2-1}\right)^{\mu-\nu}}dt

\square

UPDATE: There’s a new LaTeX on WordPress.com FAQ entry that describes the “hidden” size and color options.

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by Mike Adams (mdawaffe)

Posted: Saturday, February 17th, 2007 at 3:22 am. Filed in Uncategorized.
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272 Comments

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  1. Pingback: 在 WordPress.com 上用 LaTeX 數學式 at Gea-Suan Lin’s BLOG
  2. ferramis
    Feb 17th at 8:54 pm

    Thanks, Thats niiiice!

  3. Pingback: Equations on WordPress « Ancora Imparo
  4. jd2718
    Feb 17th at 9:16 pm

    any chance of enabling this for comments??? If we ask real nice, maybe?

  5. Pingback: LaTeX now native on Wordpress « Musical Naturalist
  6. anapires
    Feb 17th at 10:07 pm

    *is a languages’ and literatures’ student*

    o_o

  7. naturalist
    Feb 17th at 10:16 pm

    I for one welcome our new math overlords.

  8. Pingback: Math for the masses - LaTeX on the WordPress « Alex’s Blog
  9. Matt
    Feb 17th at 10:45 pm

    I don’t know if we could make this into a plugin for regular WP because it requires some LaTex command line stuff and caching, which we send to a special server.

  10. Peter Klein
    Feb 17th at 11:11 pm

    It’s working on comments now:

    http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2007/02/17/nerd-alert-part-ii/#comment-12892

    Thanks guys!

  11. Pingback: links for 2007-02-17 « kobak del.icio.us könyvjelzői
  12. grinder
    Feb 17th at 11:31 pm

    Nice addition for the Math bloggers… \m/

  13. Coops
    Feb 17th at 11:41 pm

    Well, when wordpress is so functional, I guess the only thing you can do is add features that will be completely useless to 99.999% of us. Wait… I wonder if I can use a formula to represent that…

  14. Guru
    Feb 17th at 11:42 pm

    This is so…lovely! I can start working on my book right away! Thanks a lot!

  15. Sandy, csj
    Feb 17th at 11:43 pm

    I guess I would be one of the 17…let’s see if works in Comments:

    X(s)={\cal L}\{x(t) \}= \int_{0}^{\infty}x(t)e^{-st}dt

    My personal blog wouldn’t make much use of this, but perhaps this might make blogging (in WordPress, of course) a viable teaching tool…thanks!

    Sandy, the techie nun.

  16. Pingback: I too can speak $latex LaTeX$ « Entertaining Research
  17. californiadan
    Feb 17th at 11:56 pm

    Uh?????????? Would rather see everyone focusing on various third party integrations like you’ve been doing (Phanfare, Streampad, etc.)

    But cool…

  18. RubeRad
    Feb 18th at 12:01 am

    Hooray! I’m one of the geeks that will use this, and it looks like there are way more than 16 others…

  19. Pingback: A truly “techie” post… « nunsuch
  20. Pingback: LATEX in Wordpress « Perfectly Reasonable Deviations
  21. rod.
    Feb 18th at 12:38 am

    Totally awesome! :-) I love you guys!! You made my life a lot easier!

  22. RubeRad
    Feb 18th at 2:00 am

    Question: is there any way to control the size of the \LaTeX that gets generated? In my blog (or for my theme?) stuff inline looks out-of-place and uncharacteristically un-\LaTeX-y.

    See here when \sqrt{2} is in the middle of a sentence…

  23. Alon Levy
    Feb 18th at 2:04 am

    And to think I spent so much time developing my ASCIIfied math notation, complete with double-booked parentheses and an underline for complex conjugation.

    Still, thanks for hte addition.

  24. Pingback: Wordpress Installs LaTeX (and I Classify Finite Fields) « Abstract Nonsense
  25. Pingback: LaTeX in WordPress Blogs « CyptoBlog
  26. Vivek
    Feb 18th at 3:25 am

    Are you cool or are you cool!

  27. pasturescott
    Feb 18th at 4:09 am

    Do tell?

    However have I lived without this feature?
    Wake me when you crack the modified metaphysical numerical space range code.
    *snore*

  28. Julia
    Feb 18th at 5:38 am

    Hello sexy math geeks everywhere!

    What an interesting…odd…feature. But who says all bloggers are brainless? Bring on the geeks, baby.

  29. clubpenguin98
    Feb 18th at 5:52 am

    cool but that makes no scence to me :lol:

  30. moraie
    Feb 18th at 6:52 am

    Oh dear. I’m married to a mathematician; now I’m going to have to learn Latex because it just makes everything look so nice!

  31. Elaine
    Feb 18th at 8:07 am

    Does is it also have the ‘cotangent theta’ stuff? Ohmigosh, weird, I miss Calculus! :D

  32. abu ameerah
    Feb 18th at 8:23 am

    i’m scared of math….

    it makes my head hurt!

  33. sheida
    Feb 18th at 8:54 am

    Great Job
    Making a whole internet here

  34. king84
    Feb 18th at 9:46 am

    GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

  35. Dmitri
    Feb 18th at 10:38 am

    Omg I gotta use it right now :)

  36. Pingback: WordPress aktsepteerib nüüd LaTeX’i koodi « peeter @ matemaatika
  37. qbit
    Feb 18th at 1:58 pm

    Nice feature. Perhaps I use it in the future…

    By the way, the title “Math for the Masses” remembers me a Depeche Mode’s album: “Music for the Masses”. :D

  38. Pingback: Sweet, we can use LaTeX « Setting the World on Fire one Flag at a Time
  39. Rami Nasser
    Feb 18th at 3:47 pm

    {WordPress Rules} \propto {Number Of Features}

  40. evolvingtrends
    Feb 18th at 3:50 pm

    I approve! :]

    However, my blog is already read by only 17 people. If I start defining things in more exact terms, I’m afraid it will only be read by the hippe guy in the basement.

    I not only makes sense, but “scence” too!

  41. lisele
    Feb 18th at 4:52 pm

    I can say with total sincerity THAT is a feature I will never use. Lovely though it may be…

  42. Pingback: Latex math « EDUC 860 - Curriculum Theory
  43. Karura
    Feb 18th at 5:33 pm

    I guess this gets me 1% closer to that physics-related secondary blog I keep talking about doing one day in the future…

  44. chanux
    Feb 18th at 5:45 pm

    LATEX – Time to remind those old days. WP you made me amazed !
    Thanx twice…Heh…. :)

    WordPress – The Blogging platform for GEEKS.

  45. Surion E.
    Feb 18th at 5:47 pm

    This is more than great!

  46. Pingback: Ganz private Mathematik « KOW’s Blog
  47. teenfg
    Feb 18th at 6:59 pm

    Looks kinda weird.

  48. amali
    Feb 18th at 7:50 pm

    Oh man, THANK YOU people so much.

  49. Pingback: LaTeX for wordpress.com « The Art of Equations
  50. mdawaffe
    Feb 18th at 8:29 pm

    This LaTeX on WordPress.com FAQ entry describes the “hidden” color and size options.

  51. zappi
    Feb 18th at 8:46 pm

    Pritty Nice. I will not use TeX/LaTeX at my Blog, but I use it sometimes to Create hugh Documents. TeX/LaTeX roxxors. :D

  52. idrc
    Feb 18th at 8:59 pm

    Wow, This is great for people who need it, I’m horrible at math so i wont need it but for those people on WordPress.com that do need it, It is a great addition!

  53. Pingback: Meriblog: Meri Williams’ Weblog » links for 2007-02-18
  54. enderw88
    Feb 18th at 10:14 pm

    Thank you!!! I already put some of my automotive theory pages up.

  55. Jeffrey
    Feb 18th at 10:22 pm

    Maybe I can use this feature to write a very complicated math equation to freak out those bloggers who are not with WordPress. :-)

  56. Ms. Rebecca Newburn
    Feb 19th at 12:06 am

    Thank you. I’m a math teacher and have a math blog for my students (msnewburn.wordpress.com). I always feel like I have to limit my writing prompts for my students because there wasn’t a way to write mathematical formulae.

  57. gamerconor
    Feb 19th at 12:54 am

    this is cool, just which i was further in maths.lol.

  58. Irian
    Feb 19th at 1:20 am

    Hah!

    This is sweet

    \overline{E_i} = \int_{x=0}^{\infty}\sqrt{x^2+25} \, dx

  59. Brian Purkiss
    Feb 19th at 3:29 am

    Wow, that’s cool. I don’t know if I’ll ever use that… But it’s cool!
    Thanks for the updates!

  60. Pingback: Handy WordPress tool « What You’re Doing Is Rather Desperate
  61. Pingback: Trying Out LaTex on WordPress « Danger - No Random Walking!
  62. Milla
    Feb 19th at 4:52 am

    Thank you! Looks really cool!

  63. lnxwalt
    Feb 19th at 6:27 am

    Beautiful, even though I currently do not use LaTeX at all. It is on my list, but I’m currently trying to get my mind around MathML.

  64. Pingback: Astro Seminar: Finding exoplanets « Spheroid
  65. BFP
    Feb 19th at 7:50 am

    Couldn’t care in the least about Latex myself, but applaud the team for their continued work as it enhances the entire community.

    WordPress.com will be reaching 1 million blogs this year if the growth remains the same (I think).

    On another note, we are experiencing far less spam this past week at our blog and it seems that something has been done to calm things and catch it earlier on. (?)

    Anyway, just wanted to stop by and thank Matt and the team for their continued energies.

    cheers!

    Marcus

  66. Pingback: LaTex en wordpress, omfg! « Chamanga reloaded
  67. Pingback: Priatna · LaTeX di Wordpress
  68. Carlos
    Feb 19th at 1:57 pm

    This is really great! My standard prcedure was using LaTeX to typeset the equations, then grabbing a snapshot of the DVI file, clipping the equation into a GIF file, and uploading it to the blog. This LaTeX feature will save me a lot of time, and posts will look really professional.

    Thanks a lot, guys!

  69. Pingback: 워드프레스, 레이텍 수식 표현 지원 « Ρνευματι και στοιχωμεν
  70. Ian Lumb
    Feb 19th at 6:08 pm

    This is excellent!

    Now I can properly share the expression for the Ekman number,

    $ E = \frac{\nu}{{\Omega L^{2}} $.

    In case you’re interested, the Ekman number is a gross measure of viscous to Coriolis effects in a rotating fluid. To learn more, you can consult Wikipedia.

  71. shortexact
    Feb 19th at 8:30 pm

    Thanks! This is beyond awesome.

  72. rmtaylor
    Feb 19th at 8:30 pm

    Yes!! Latex implementation?? waaay cool. I dont use it for maths but for phonetics and stuff… so that might work too now!! gotta give it a try…

  73. Pingback: LaTeX no Wordpress.com « Terramel
  74. Pingback: LaTeX no WordPress « ciência É cultura
  75. Leila
    Feb 19th at 10:16 pm

    Hey thanks :)

  76. Pingback: Latex « Hawthorne Effect
  77. Dannie
    Feb 20th at 3:58 am

    This is mega cool! I am not sure that this is going to be where I am going to be writing down Hamiltonians again, but gee…. YES! Miss TEX and laTEx is just its good cousin!

  78. timpani
    Feb 20th at 4:58 am

    \eta_{k,i}(x) \equiv \frac{\displaystyle{\prod_{{\scriptstyle j=0}\atop{\scriptstyle j\ne 1}}^{3}(x-x_{k+j})}}{\displaystyle{\prod_{{\scriptstyle j=0}\atop{\scriptstyle j\ne 1}}^{3}(x_{k+i}-x_{k+j})}}

  79. Pingback: Dario Salvelli’s Blog » Blog Archive » Wordpress for Students
  80. evolvingtrends
    Feb 20th at 11:05 am

    cost functions look better on cheap paper

  81. ashtangajoy
    Feb 20th at 11:21 am

    Having retired from lecturing in mathematics and additionally having stopped using Latex some 5 – 10 years ago, and gone over to using Maple, I thought that I would never be using Latex again.

    But I see that I must start reminding myself of all the latex process, but, now, having thrown away all documentation on it!

  82. ashtangajoy
    Feb 20th at 11:25 am

    … although thinking about it a bit more the latex process is a bit clumsy and the use of MathType is really much easier I suspect.

  83. metacircular
    Feb 20th at 11:54 am

    HAVE MY MANBABIES

    BEST FEATURE _EVER_.

  84. hyperborean
    Feb 20th at 12:28 pm

    COOL, i appreciate this, thanks

  85. Corey Clayton
    Feb 20th at 12:46 pm

    Ugh….I’m having horrible college algebra flashbacks just looking at that! Nice feature :-)

  86. Pingback: TASP - LaTeX edition « Qulog 2.0
  87. Rodrigo Venancio
    Feb 20th at 4:29 pm

    I really don’t know if I’ll ever use it, but, anyway, thanks in advance!

  88. lietk12
    Feb 20th at 4:46 pm

    Yay! Now I can do my proof that \displaystyle\sum_{i=0}^{\infty}\frac{1}{2^i}!
    There’s a great LaTeX guide at http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/LaTeX/AoPS_L_About.php

  89. Pingback:   Math on WordPress.com by Blogging Pro
  90. VDO Vault
    Feb 20th at 7:53 pm

    Worpress is supporting LaTex?!?!

    How is it you guys keep outdoing yourselves like this?!?! This is awesome!

  91. twitchy67
    Feb 20th at 8:57 pm

    Hrmmm…the only latex I ever use has nothing to do with math…well it may be related to multiplication and keeping the it from happening… but seriously, its always cool to see new stuff, and thanks for continuing to update!

  92. galvanized
    Feb 20th at 9:29 pm

    As a lifelong arithmophobe, I get hives just looking at what this font can do. Math was actually bearable when it entailed numbers only, but in sixth grade, when letters, strange signs, and superscript came into the equation — no pun intended — that’s when I freaked out on the subject. LOL It is objectively pretty, though, like font art. Enjoy your niche! You definitely found one judging from the comments above.

  93. João Borges
    Feb 20th at 10:22 pm

    I can’t believe this guys!!!

    Thank you very much

  94. Jamie Thingelstad
    Feb 20th at 10:32 pm

    I’m somewhat surprised that you didn’t just implement the jsMath library. I’ve been using it on Road Sign Math for a long time and it works really well. However, this implementation seems really nice as well.

    Any chance this is going to be a wp-plugin soon for people that are running WordPress locally? Would be a nice thing to have. I realize there is the LaTeX Renderer plugin, but this seems to be a superior implementation.

  95. Pingback: LaTeX @ Wordpress « Sacré chou !
  96. Kevin
    Feb 21st at 5:39 am

    This is wonderful!!!!! Thank you!!!!!!

  97. naani
    Feb 21st at 6:45 am

    GREAT !!!!!!
    i may try to play a little bit ….
    come to know the existence of typesetting ..
    thank you

  98. nicteis
    Feb 21st at 12:45 pm

    Woof, woof woof!

    Ryan, that first equation gives the time evolution of the Schroedinger wave function \psi . (Now aren’t you glad you asked?)

  99. Pingback: Math for the masses « The Plummet Onions
  100. maiapapaya
    Feb 21st at 5:18 pm

    \int \omega \epsilon\epsilon\Gamma

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