## 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.

Missing out on the latest WordPress.com developments? Enter your email below to receive future announcements direct to your inbox. An email confirmation will be sent before you will start receiving notifications - please check your spam folder if you don't receive this.

Join 10,431,352 other followers

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

Join 10,431,352 other followers

1. Pingback: 在 WordPress.com 上用 LaTeX 數學式 at Gea-Suan Lin’s BLOG
2. ferramis

Thanks, Thats niiiice!

3. Pingback: Equations on WordPress « Ancora Imparo
4. jd2718

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

5. Pingback: LaTeX now native on Wordpress « Musical Naturalist
6. anapires

*is a languages’ and literatures’ student*

o_o

7. naturalist

I for one welcome our new math overlords.

8. Pingback: Math for the masses - LaTeX on the WordPress « Alex’s Blog
9. Matt

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
11. Pingback: links for 2007-02-17 « kobak del.icio.us könyvjelzői
12. grinder

Nice addition for the Math bloggers… \m/

13. Coops

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

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

15. Sandy, csj

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

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

But cool…

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.

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

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

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

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

Are you cool or are you cool!

27. pasturescott

Do tell?

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

28. Julia

Hello sexy math geeks everywhere!

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

29. clubpenguin98

cool but that makes no scence to me

30. moraie

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

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

32. abu ameerah

i’m scared of math….

33. sheida

Great Job
Making a whole internet here

34. king84

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

35. Dmitri

Omg I gotta use it right now

36. Pingback: WordPress aktsepteerib nüüd LaTeX’i koodi « peeter @ matemaatika
37. qbit

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”.

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

${WordPress Rules} \propto {Number Of Features}$

40. evolvingtrends

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

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

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

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

WordPress – The Blogging platform for GEEKS.

45. Surion E.

This is more than great!

46. Pingback: Ganz private Mathematik « KOW’s Blog
47. teenfg

Looks kinda weird.

48. amali

Oh man, THANK YOU people so much.

49. Pingback: LaTeX for wordpress.com « The Art of Equations
50. mdawaffe

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

51. zappi

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

52. idrc

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

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

55. Jeffrey

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

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

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

58. Irian

Hah!

This is sweet

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

59. Brian Purkiss

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

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

Thank you! Looks really cool!

63. lnxwalt

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

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

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

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

Thanks! This is beyond awesome.

72. rmtaylor

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

Hey thanks

76. Pingback: Latex « Hawthorne Effect
77. Dannie

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

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

79. Pingback: Dario Salvelli’s Blog » Blog Archive » Wordpress for Students
80. evolvingtrends

cost functions look better on cheap paper

81. ashtangajoy

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

… 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

HAVE MY MANBABIES

BEST FEATURE _EVER_.

84. hyperborean

COOL, i appreciate this, thanks

85. Corey Clayton

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

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

88. lietk12

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

Worpress is supporting LaTex?!?!

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

91. twitchy67

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

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

I can’t believe this guys!!!

Thank you very much

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

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

97. naani

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

98. nicteis

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

$\int \omega \epsilon\epsilon\Gamma$