Steve Litt wrote:
Hi all,
I'm going to write an introductory algebra book to make algebra easy for
people with mental blocks. This will NOT be a traditional textbook. In my
personal opinion, the purpose of traditional textbooks is to make the subject
seem so complex as to require an expensive class with an instructor (yes, I
am somewhat cynical). I'm going to distill algebra down to its simplest
components.
Following the suggestions of many of you, I'll be using the AMS Math Book
document class. This document class has numerous environments whose names are
taken from math:
Right address theorum corollary
lemma proposition conjecture
criterion algorithm fact
axiom definition example
condition problem exercise
remark claim note
notation summary acknowledgement
case conclusion proof
subjectclass
I looked up a lot of them on dictionary.com, and doubt I'll be using too many
things like lemmas, corrolaries, and the like.
Of course, you can remove these, or any that you know you won't be
using. Most of them are in amsmaths.inc.
I bet a lot of you have written math books. Which of these do you use most
often? In math, what do the following mean?
case
If you're doing a proof that has multiple cases. Maybe, say, for convex
or concave figures.
condition
I've not used that.
claim
In the course of giving a proof, one often says something like: I now
claim that p. Proof: Blah blah.
notation
Similar to definition, but specifically for introducing notation. Not
likely you'll need this.
subjectclass
I believe this is for AMS article indexing. You shouldn't need that, either.
I use the "therefore symbol" (Three dots with two on the bottom and one on
top) a lot. How do I do that in LyX or LaTeX?
/therefore, which needs the amssymb package, but you'll already have
that if you're using amsbook.cls. Get this:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/symbols/comprehensive/.
How do I do something like this:
4x + 2x + 5x + 3 +4 = 6x + 5x + 3 + 4
= 6x + 5x + 7
= 11x + 7
In other words, the equal signs are vertically aligned. How do I do that?
Use the align environment. It's basically an array with two columns.
How do I find out more about the mechanics of writing a math book?
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/math/voss/mathmode/
Richard
--
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Richard G Heck, Jr
Professor of Philosophy
Brown University
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