The h Bar

David Z

17:00

@EmilioPisanty But that's not precisely what historical locks were made for. They're meant for "stellar" questions which have exceptional redeeming value despite not being on topic. Not that "stellar" correlates directly to votes, but I'm thinking more like 25-score questions, not 5-score questions. Most physics-careers questions don't come anywhere close to that.

By the way, our allotted time for the chat session is over. See everyone in two weeks! We'll continue this discussion on tags for those who would like to stick around.

Emilio Pisanty

@DavidZ so what do you reckon?

delete them all?

David Z

@EmilioPisanty All the questions? I'd say examine the top 5 or so for possible historical lock, and delete the rest. Though if we can have the tag blacklisted (I mean, forbidden for future use) without removing it, the deletion isn't so important.

Emilio Pisanty

@DavidZ or maybe we can ask for a mass migration to academia?

that last bit does look to be possible

David Z

@EmilioPisanty Eh... that's questionable. No guarantee that all the questions would be on topic or desirable on Academia, and some of them may have duplicates there anyway. Plus as a rule we can't migrate questions older than 60 days; I'm sure SE could override that, but I doubt they would want to.

One thing we could do is, if we find (open) duplicates on Academia, edit in a "manual duplicate notice" that points to the question there.

Since you pointed out that it does seem to be possible to have a tag blacklisted but not burninated, maybe we can just have physics-careers blacklisted for now, and then we can discuss what to do with the old questions with that tag. cc @Qmechanic

Emilio Pisanty

BTW there's about 900 total rep on the tag.

not that removals will affect people much

but still

David Z

17:11

I suppose that's a good point against deleting unnecessarily. Well, it looks like 200 of that rep is associated with deleted users anyway, and other than that, no more than 105 to any given user

Emilio Pisanty

@DavidZ yeah, on closer inspection, it's not that impactful

I guess this guy/girl won't be happy

grad student

49 1 2

but otherwise

David Z

Still, that is enough to push me over in favor of dealing with this without mass deletion if we can - and it looks like we can.

Emilio Pisanty

@DavidZ cool

I guess that's mostly it for now?

We haven't discussed the + tags

or tag review queues

but those sound like topics for another day

David Z

Yeah... well, I'm worn out for now, I agree to defer those to another day.

Qmechanic

@EmilioPisanty : OK.

Emilio Pisanty

17:16

@DavidZ one last bit, what's your thoughts on changing tags on this one to careers and then it can be lumped in with the others?

1

Q: Publication Authorship Credits

Many physics papers now have dozens of authors per paper. Experimental physics may have multi-organizational and multi-country contributing staffs, but I'd guess that most of the names don't contribute a word or equation to a paper, yet they get individual authorship credit. My question is who de...

soft-question general-physics

it's essentially the same situation the way I see it

David Z

Yeah, if the tag is going to be blacklisted anyway, I don't mind

Emilio Pisanty

cool

Anonymous

What is a good software for Windows 7 that allows to create LaTeX documents and save/render them on desktop?

Anonymous

Any suggestions?

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue texmaker

David Z

17:18

@Blue MikTeX is the common LaTeX compiler for Windows I think? You'll need a compiler as well as an editor (which TeXmaker is AFAIK)

Anonymous

@EmilioPisanty Thanks, checking

Yashas

I have less than 15 more hours at home before I go to college

Anonymous

@Yashas You said it starts next Monday?

Emilio Pisanty

@DavidZ I imagine @Blue was looking for a frontend rather than a backend

@Blue but you do need a back-end to actually compile the latex into pdf whatever editor you choose

Anonymous

I guess I need both. I want to type my lecture notes in LaTeX and then save them as pdf documents for future reference

David Z

17:20

Yeah, you need both

Yashas

@Blue I need to be at the college on Saturday

I am leaving tmrow

Anonymous

@Yashas Oh, are your parents gonna accompany you?

Yashas

@Blue yes

they need to sign some stuff AFAIK

David Z

@Yashas Good luck

Yashas

@DavidZ Thank You :-)

Emilio Pisanty

17:21

@Blue You need a backend but for windows the standard choice is MikTeX and there's little reason to deviate unless you have very specific requirements

@Yashas yup, good luck with that

Yashas

@EmilioPisanty ty :)

David Z

31

Q: Latex distributions. What are their main differences?

What are the main differences among: TeX Live teTeX fpTeX MiKTeX proTeXt MacTeX gwTeX OzTeX AmigaTeX PasTeX

distributions

Emilio Pisanty

oh, god, no, don't look at that

just install MikTeX and forget about it

it's enough of a pain to learn LaTeX as is

John Rennie

@Qmechanic I saw it mentioned on Peter Woit's blog. Not that I'm a big fan of Woit, but he does a good job of collating interesting links so I find his blog worth reading.

Anonymous

Texmaker isn't available for Windows 7? xm1math.net/texmaker/download.html

David Z

17:24

Oh here's another good one:

83

A: What are the advantages of TeX Live over MiKTeX?

I've covered some of this before on my blog, so some of this is a rehash! In recent versions, the differences between MiKTeX and TeX Live have narrowed. Package coverage between the two is similar, as is the ability to do on-line updates. I guess here you want differences: Only MiKTeX can do 'o...

@Blue The older version (4.5) says it does run in Win 7

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue hmmmmm, seems so, it stops at 4.5 for win7 and it's at 5.0 for the rest

Qmechanic

@JohnRennie : Ah, Ok, thx.

David Z

and you could always just try the 5.0 installer on Windows 7, it might just work anyway

Emilio Pisanty

No, if you're just starting, there's no sense in jumping into monkey business like that

you want something that's well supported on your machine

David Z

@EmilioPisanty assuming you're talking about Texmaker 4.5 v 5.0, I disagree. My point is that both versions might be well supported even though only one claims to be.

And there should be nothing to lose by trying the other.

Emilio Pisanty

17:27

I used texniccenter.org for a long time but switched to texmaker when I moved to ubuntu, mostly because of the better preview pane. it might have improved, though.

0celoñe7

°

Amazing

keyboard shortcuts are amazing technology

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue I think I would recommend texstudio texstudio.sourceforge.net

692

Q: LaTeX Editors/IDEs

What editors/IDEs are available for easing the process of writing TeX/LaTeX documents? Please state some useful features like code completion, spell checking, building final DVI or PDF files, etc. This question is undergoing a systematic refurbishment, see Let’s polish the Editors/IDEs questi...

editors big-list ide

user228700

2 hours ago, by Yashas

@JohnRennie Me too :D My DOB on FB says that I am 117 years old :D

Emilio Pisanty

good list with features breakdown

user228700

@Yashas: Hahaha, this made me laugh out loud! x'D

0celoñe7

17:29

TexStudio is so cluttered @EmilioPisanty

user228700

Also, good luck at college and everything! :-)

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 as opposed to what?

David Z

@Blue I'd suggest installing MikTeX (or an alternative TeX distribution if you want) to start, then you can download several different editors and try them. TeXmaker, TeXstudio, etc. See that list Emilio just linked to.

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty The editor I use on Mac

John Rennie

@Kaumudi.H when I created my niece's Amazon account I put her age in as forty. Amazon don't seem surprised that a 40 year old is buying young adult fiction :-)

Emilio Pisanty

17:30

@0celoñe7 yeah, well, this is on windows 7, so mac just don't cut it

user228700

@JohnRennie Ah, haha :-)

0celoñe7

user228700

@JohnRennie I remember lying about my age on gmail when I created my account all those years ago but to no other website have I lied (in this respect :-P).

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 this thing? pages.uoregon.edu/koch/texshop

David Z

@JohnRennie well they wouldn't tell you so as not to tip their hand :-P

0celoñe7

17:31

@EmilioPisanty yeah

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 how does it do with source/pdf sync?

e.g. the ctrl+space / ctrl+click syntax on texmaker

0celoñe7

I don't know what that is.

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 so if you ctrl+space at any line in the source, it will move the pdf to that paragraph and highlight it

and if you ctrl+click on the preview pane, it will move the source cursor the the line that produced it

frankly, any editor that doesn't have that is just wasting your time for no good reason

particularly on any document longer than two or three pages

David Z

I think I actually disabled that feature in my editor... can't remember why though

Emilio Pisanty

@DavidZ to each their workflow

John Rennie

17:34

@BernardoMeurer: I have a book recommendation for you

Emilio Pisanty

a.k.a. some people just like inefficient ways to work

=P

0celoñe7

I haven't tried to do that

David Z

Yeah... but I should probably try to enable it again. It doesn't make much sense to do without it and I really can't figure out why I turned it off in the first place.

0celoñe7

Not sure if it works

@EmilioPisanty Neat. Command click works.

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 yeah

user228700

17:36

@JohnRennie x'D

Emilio Pisanty

I can honestly swear that I owe my sanity to that feature.

Writing 240 pages without it would've driven me into a series of rooms with soft walls.

ACuriousMind

@EmilioPisanty I don't see how writing so many pages would lead you into bouncy castles ;)

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty I can't see my current project getting that long.

Well, there are a few papers I wish to summarize and that might take a while.

I expect 100-150 when all is said and done.

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 you will write more projects than just your current project

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty Yes.

In it's current state it's probably more than enough for my undergrad thesis, but I have so much left to do!

The subtitle has three points and I've covered two partially.

Emilio Pisanty

17:48

(!)

0celoñe7

Good old Mexico City

skullpatrol

Looks like a crime scene?

Anonymous

@EmilioPisanty @DavidZ I just now found that ShareLatex is an online LaTeX editor which can also convert the document to pdf and allows download of the pdf. I think that will serve my purpose for now (without having to download any extra software on my machine). Thanks for your help though!

David Z

@Blue Ah, sure, if you prefer not to have to download anything, that's the way to go.

0celoñe7

@Blue If you're an engineer you really should be using Word.

2

David Z

17:56

FWIW ShareLatex will soon be merging with Overleaf.

@0celoñe7 [citation needed]

0celoñe7

Getting quick with the equations, etc. will be helpful.

@DavidZ I'm an engineer?

David Z

(1) Not a citation (2) And you speak for all engineers?

Anonymous

@0celoñe7 I'm a physicist at heart :P Anyhow, I would like to typset my lecture notes for which LaTeX editors will do better than Word. Secondly, I find Word a bit outdated.

0celoñe7

(1) What kind of demand is that? Do you expect it to be written in a gold tablet? (2) Yes.

AccidentalFourierTransform

@EmilioPisanty still looking for a room?-

0celoñe7

17:58

@Blue I am currently typing the same report in LaTeX and Word.

AccidentalFourierTransform

another friend of mine has something

0celoñe7

The engineers who will read it prefer Word, and the physicists prefer LaTeX.

Maybe there are font packages for TeX to make it look more like Word.

skullpatrol

How about the mathematicians?

0celoñe7

@skullpatrol Depends on the purpose of the document.

AccidentalFourierTransform

@0celoñe7 so, what is the direct method?

David Z

18:00

23

Q: Making a LaTeX document appear as though it were typeset in MS Word

I am typesetting a document in LaTeX for which I have been given exact specifications that are intended for an MS Word-processed document (single-sided, single-spaced, 0.75 inch margins, no more than 60 lines per page, no more than 15 characters per inch (including punctuation, spaces, and symbol...

fonts spacing formatting margins msword

0celoñe7

@AccidentalFourierTransform Using analytic estimates on the functional to find the inf.

Usually one shows the functional is bounded below, then weakly lower semicontinuous, then extracts a sequence that converges weakly to the min, then shows the convergence is strong in some Sobolev/Lipschitz space.

AccidentalFourierTransform

inf is overrated

0celoñe7

Finally there is a regularity theory...but there are more general methods too.

Sometimes one wants to minimize over a space of manifolds, and so has to consider more general objects such as currents or varifolds.

AccidentalFourierTransform

a satinary point is all i need

inf is overrated

a satinary point is all i need

on my phone, my internet connection sucks

bye

skullpatrol

Cya

0celoñe7

18:06

@ACuriousMind Why is $\delta S=0$?

@DavidZ Interesting.

skullpatrol

Back to point (2), what gives you that authority? @0celoñe7

0celoñe7

@skullpatrol There was a vote.

skullpatrol

...and you were the only candidate?

0celoñe7

@skullpatrol Of course not.

skullpatrol

Be humble.

0celoñe7

18:14

@skullpatrol what does that mean?

Emilio Pisanty

@AccidentalFourierTransform yes

Whereabouts?

skullpatrol

What part of "humble" don't you understand? @0celoñe7

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue here's a dirty secret: TeX is pretty outdated

Anonymous

Why doesn't ShareLatex editor recognize the $\Bbb R$ ? What packages do I need to import to enable MathJax ?

Anonymous

0celoñe7

18:17

AMSmath.

ACuriousMind

@EmilioPisanty It's old. Doesn't "outdated" imply that there's something newer that's better than the outdated thing?

0celoñe7

@ACuriousMind 3D printing.

ACuriousMind

Or do you just mean that it's design principles are outdated? Because with that I'd agree.

0celoñe7

If you're not 3D printing your path, c'mon.

Get with the times.

Anonymous

@0celoñe7 I did import that..it's still not recognizing $\Bbb R$

0celoñe7

18:19

@Blue Typeset the $n$-th derivative as $y^{(n)}$.

ACuriousMind

@Blue Use \mathbb, not \Bbb

0celoñe7

@ACuriousMind $\Bbb$ works on all of my editors.

@Blue Use the geometry package to fix the margins.

@Blue Use \to instead of \rightarrow.

ACuriousMind

@0celoñe7 It's obsolete and since ShareLatex has no reason to be backwards-compatible they perhaps droped it completely in their installation.

(I will retract that argument if \mathbb doesn't work either.

Anonymous

@ACuriousMind \mathbb also not working :/

0celoñe7

18:22

@Blue Please follow my other suggestions, I do know what I'm talking about.

ACuriousMind

Ahhh

@Blue It's in amssymb, not amsmath

0celoñe7

Braces are superfluous on singular superscripts.

@ACuriousMind Ah.

Anonymous

@ACuriousMind Phew! Finally. Is there a list of the packages and commands in any one website? They are difficult to remember

ACuriousMind

@Blue hahahahahahaha

0celoñe7

@Blue Google "list of latex symbols wiki"

Go to the LaTeX wiki

ACuriousMind

18:24

I mean, there is a giant pdf that lists many symbols

But honestly, often the quickest way to identify where the symbol you want is is Detexify

Also improves your free-hand drawing skills ;)

Anonymous

@0celoñe7 Thanks, I know about the symbol list. I wanted to have a list of the LaTeX packages (like amsmath) along with the corresponding commands they support

0celoñe7

@Blue ctan.org

ACuriousMind

@Blue CTAN is the repository for all packages, but...it's not really a list like the one you're thinking of

0celoñe7

\documentclass[12pt]{memoir}
\usepackage{amsmath, amssymb, amsthm, fancyvrb, mathrsfs, verbatim}
\usepackage{tikz-cd}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{bbm}
\usepackage{physics}
\graphicspath{{images/}}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix,arrows,decorations.pathmorphing}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\newcommand{\ee}{\mathrm{e}}
\newcommand{\ii}{\mathrm{i}}

Emilio Pisanty

also, packages are not just collections of symbols

0celoñe7

18:27

those are the major packages you'll never need

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 that's horrifying

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty why?

Emilio Pisanty

ain't no need for that many newcommands

or at least

ACuriousMind

> \newcommand instead of \DeclareMathOperator

Emilio Pisanty

ain't no need for a newbie to pull that many commands from someone else's boilerplate

0celoñe7

18:27

@ACuriousMind what?

@Blue Updated.

ACuriousMind

Also, what Emilio said, no need to copy someone else's newcommands until you know whether you need them or not

0celoñe7

@ACuriousMind I just pasted by usual thingie

I cut out the newcommands

@ACuriousMind what is the difference?

Emilio Pisanty

 \usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
 \usepackage{graphicx}
 \usepackage{physics}

only set that's really worth recommending as boilerplate regardless of circumstances

skullpatrol

Was that crime scene Mexico City? @EmilioPisanty

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty >not including amsthm

Emilio Pisanty

18:30

@skullpatrol apparently so

@0celoñe7 indeed

ACuriousMind

@0celoñe7 The latter is easier to use :P

Emilio Pisanty

no need

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty How do you typeset theorems?

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 I don't

ACuriousMind

@0celoñe7 Physicists generally don't write definition-theorem-proof style, remember?

0celoñe7

18:30

@ACuriousMind The physics books I read do. Maybe there's an issue there.

ACuriousMind

Yeah, there's an issue with your "physics" books ;)

0celoñe7

In any case, @Blue is taking notes on ODE.

Emilio Pisanty

Ok, maybe

Mithrandir24601

@0celoñe7 I believe you mis-typed 'physics' for 'maths' :P

0celoñe7

@Mithrandir24601 Mathematical physics?

skullpatrol

18:32

^

Emilio Pisanty

\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
\usepackage{amsfonts,mathrsfs}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{physics}

Anonymous

@0celoñe7 Thanks, that will be very helpful!

Mithrandir24601

@0celoñe7 Fair enough then...

Emilio Pisanty

btw @DavidZ CC @Qmechanic @ACuriousMind

in Wolfram Mathematica, 3 mins ago, by rcollyer

Oh, I see. You're looking to possibly close out/burninate all the physics careers questions. Incidentally, mine came from the theoretical physics site (while it existed) and was considered on topic there.

0celoñe7

@Blue Always remember to do \ii for the imaginary unit and \ee for Euler's number.

Sir Cumference

18:33

@DanielSank What the...I think I see an email from you from a year ago containing some python file

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 @Blue always remember to do i for the imaginary unit and e for Euler's number

0celoñe7

@Blue I highly recommend physics, as does @EmilioPisanty.

The documentation is very good.

ACuriousMind

Always remember to do Euler's number imaginary.

@SirCumference Probably a virus.

0celoñe7

$\dv{f}{x}$ is $\frac{\mathrm df}{\mathrm dx}$.

ACuriousMind

@EmilioPisanty Aha

Emilio Pisanty

18:35

hmmmm. Ah, also

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty @ACuriousMind defend me

Sir Cumference

@ACuriousMind It says "special relativity take 2" and the sender says Daniel Sank

I never gave out my email

Emilio Pisanty

\usepackage[colorlinks,  linkcolor=blue,  urlcolor=blue,  citecolor=blue]{hyperref}

normally required to be the last package you load

471 lines of preamble on my thesis

btw

out of 587 on the main file

Anonymous

@0celoñe7 Yup, I have imported that package. I'll save them (a list of the necessary packages) somewhere as a quick reference. BTW how do you write "physics" like that in your message?

Anonymous

0celoñe7

18:37

@Blue backticks ````

ACuriousMind

@SirCumference Uh. How would he have gotten your mail address then? (Contrary to the belief of a past user, Daniel is not actually the secret mastermind behind physics.SE :P)

0celoñe7

{backtick}physics{backtick}

Emilio Pisanty

@Blue just start using them

0celoñe7

@Blue Also remember that quoted in LaTeX are ``", not ""

Emilio Pisanty

and then copy paste from whatever your last document was

Sir Cumference

18:38

@ACuriousMind It's bizarre...though it was sent to the email I use on SE (my backup email, not my real one)

0celoñe7

@Blue What? I mean put a backtick where I wrote {backtick}

ACuriousMind

@0celoñe7 Any editor worth its salt should also do that one intelligently :P

0celoñe7

@ACuriousMind None of mine do.

Anonymous

@0celoñe7 Like this

0celoñe7

And I chose the one you recommended!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous

18:39

Yahoo :D

Anonymous

Got it :)

0celoñe7

@ACuriousMind I find the definition part pretty pretentious for math texts.

I actually like the style that some books have where they partition a chapter into 50 sections and each section has a paragraph or a theorem.

Makes everything super organized.

I need to figure out how to do that.

@ACuriousMind what do you mean?

does it work the same in the end?

I cannot type today

@EmilioPisanty this command click is genius

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 toldja

does ctrl+space work, then?

0celoñe7

I said command click does that.

Control + space is a hotkey for something else unrelated on my computer.

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 so you can't go from source to viewer?

you can probably choose a separate hotkey then

0celoñe7

18:49

@EmilioPisanty Not sure what that means.

I command click on a line in the PDF, and the source pops up with a highlight.

It works the other way around too, exactly the same.

To be clear, "command" is a button on Mac.

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 I thought you were running this on windows

but ok

0celoñe7

@EmilioPisanty Hmm?

Emilio Pisanty

I would work on getting source-to-pdf working via keyboard without needing the mouse

0celoñe7

On Windows I use TeXStudio.

I was saying I like my Mac editor much better though.

David Z

@EmilioPisanty thanks... I suppose that speaks (slightly) in favor of keeping them, which is what we're planning anyway

The migration from th.phys is kind of an unusual situation that could justify large scale historical locking. Something to think about for later.

0celoñe7

18:57

@ACuriousMind I'm gonna see Steiner in 6 days :D

@EmilioPisanty Are tables and figures numbered independently?

Emilio Pisanty

@0celoñe7 yes

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