Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Blazys
|
Yep, superb. You've got the tags down which I think was half the battle you were facing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Blazys
Now, how do I write: 
so that the term is not on one line and requires fewer parenthesis ?
Or, am I "getting ahead of myself" ? |
Not at all ahead of yourself.
There are two important considerations involving LaTex. The first is the use of parentheses and the second is the use of commands (commands are functions, symbols, or special characters).
When I say parentheses, I'm not referring to the ordinary () kind. Those print normally and are in no way special. These: {} are special. They are usually called braces. They group together anything that's between them and they don't, themselves, render. I'll show you you what I mean.
To write T^(x^2+y^2) you would do this:
[math]T^{x^2+y^2}[/math]
which renders like so:
The {} characters grouped together the x squared plus y squared part. You have to use those braces to group together that whole exponent. Even if you use normal parentheses, the special ones are also required:
[math]T^{(x^2+y^2)}[/math]
renders as:
if you didn't use the braces, you would get this:
[math]T^(x^2+y^2)[/math]
rendering as:
Notice the first character in the exponent (the left parentheses) is the only one it raised to superscript because we didn't tell it to group all of (x^2+y^2) together.
The next consideration involves the LaTex commands. They are fractions or roots or special characters... things that need more than ordinary keystroke characters to make. Erasmus points out probably the most important one above, the fraction command. There are a bunch of others which can be referenced
at this link. Commands and special characters are preceded with a backslash. For example, the fraction command starts with a backslash:
[math]\frac{a}{b}[/math]
renders as:
Anything in the first set of braces is put in the numerator and anything in the second set of braces is put in the denominator. To make things a bit more interesting:
[math]\frac{x\ln(a)}{\ln(T)}[/math]
renders as:
The commands used above are \frac and \ln. Looking, then, at the equation you asked about
: T(a/T)^((xln(a)/(ln(T))-1)/(ln(a)/(ln(T))-1)) and starting with the base:
[math]T ( \frac{a}{T} )[/math]
renders as:
and that doesn't look very good at all. The parentheses are too small, and that's something you'll run into. We need to use the special characters "\left(" and "\right)" any time we want to make bigger parentheses. This will look better:
[math]T \left( \frac{a}{T} \right)[/math]
rendering as:
Then we add the exponent:
[math]T \left( \frac{a}{T} \right)^{\left( \frac{ \frac{x \ln(a)}{ \ln(T)} -1}{ \frac{ \ln(a)}{ \ln(T)} -1} \right)}[/math]
renders as:
That is a difficult equation to put into LaTex and looks overwhelming. But, once you practice the basics, it becomes pretty intuitive. Your whole identity, complete with math tags is this:
[math]\frac{T}{T}a^x = T \left(\frac{a}{T}\right)^{\left(\frac{\frac{x\ln(a )}{\ln(T)}-1}{\frac{\ln(a)}{\ln(T)}-1}\right)}[/math]
You can copy and paste that into whatever post you're writing. In fact, I just copied it from Craig's post which is a useful shortcut. If someone writes something in LaTex, you can hit "quote" under their post and you'll see the LaTex string in the quoted part of the message. The above renders like so:
Again, that is a very overwhelming string of characters in that equation. I'd recommend starting with simple fractions and whatnot and working your way up. But, I do think you'll get the hang of it and your posts (and papers) will look so much better for it.
The thread is here for practice and shout out any questions.
~modest
This is great! 
![\int cos(2x) e^{3x} dx = \frac{1}{3} cos(2x)e^{3x} + \frac{2}{3} \left[ \frac{1}{3} sin(2x) e^{3x} - \int 2cos(2x) \frac{1}{3} e^{3x} dx \right]](http://hypography.com/forums/latex/img/f234b1505a1b0a944f8dbbb3606396e6-1.gif "\int cos(2x) e^{3x} dx = \frac{1}{3} cos(2x)e^{3x} + \frac{2}{3} \left[ \frac{1}{3} sin(2x) e^{3x} - \int 2cos(2x) \frac{1}{3} e^{3x} dx \right]")
