4

I saw in a note that when writing a paper some notations must be written by \frak{ }, in LaTeX, I want to know what the meaning of some notations is, and where I can find a source for these types of points of writing? For example, if $R$ is a local ring we write it's maximal ideal as $\frak {m}$

vonbrand
  • 28,394
Arena sovinani
  • 87
  • In principle just a way to get more symbols when you run out of latin and greek letters. There are some conventions which assign similar meaning to similar symbols, but those depend very much on the area of mathematics the work covers. – CodesInChaos Jan 04 '16 at 10:05
  • 2
    For LaTeX and in equations, I suppose it should rather be \mathfrak. Anyway, you should use that whenever you need fraktur letters. Fraktur is (for example) often used for ideals and sometimes for vectors, but mostly it is a matter of taste or local conventions. – Hagen von Eitzen Jan 04 '16 at 10:07
  • 2
    I don't think this question is about how you typeset Fraktur in LaTeX, but about mathematical writing conventions. (When should I use Fraktur instead of the Latin or Greek alphabet?) So I don't think [tex.se] is a good place for it. – CodesInChaos Jan 04 '16 at 10:12
  • 2
    "I saw in a note that ... some notations ..." – an exact quote of that note would be helpful. – Martin R Jan 04 '16 at 10:18
  • 2
    Atiyah-MacDonald uses $\mathfrak{a}, \mathfrak{b}, \mathfrak{m}, \mathfrak{p},\mathfrak{q}$ to signify ideals of a ring. – Arthur Jan 04 '16 at 10:39
  • See http://www.abstractmath.org/Word%20Press/?p=9481 and http://mathoverflow.net/questions/87627/fraktur-symbols-for-lie-algebras-mathfrakg-etc. – lhf Jan 04 '16 at 11:01
  • 1
    @pGroups On TeX.StackExchange this would be considered off-topic, I'm afraid. When to use \mathfrak is not a TeX question, but it pertains to style. – egreg Jan 04 '16 at 12:11
  • Related (but not a duplicate): Blackboard bold, Bold, Fraktur, and Reserved Variable. Linking for the exhortation to use semantic macros for notation, as in \newcommand[1]{\Ideal}{\mathfrak{#1}} in the preamble, and then \Ideal{a}, etc. in the body of the document. Hard-coding \mathfrak in the document body is brittle (e.g., if you send the paper to a publisher with rigid in-house notational conventions). Nowadays, hard-coding fonts is a (common!) rookie mistake. (That said, I myself used LaTeX for years before the point sank in.) – Andrew D. Hwang Jan 04 '16 at 15:20
  • \frak S, i.e. $\frak S$ used to be a simple way to typeset fractur letter S in AMSTeX. I am not sure whether AMSTeX has any support any longer. – Rado Jan 28 '23 at 02:00

0 Answers0