Re: rendering entities

Bruce,

See my comments below about unicode and double-struck D.


Stan

On 4/24/06, Bruce Miller <bruce.miller@nist.gov> wrote:

In other words, it seems to have been another historical development
> that we're kinda stuck with.  As David says below: "That's life"


[Stan]
We are not "Stuck with it."  It is very fortunate (and no accident) that it
is worded this way.  (See my earlier many to many mapping comment.)

Mathematics provides a special challenge to unicode because a large
collection of characters are re-used with alternative meanings on a regular
basis.

The formal mathematical definition of differential depends very heavily on
the mathematical domain intended by the author and the differences could be
important.
So it can be wrong to map the character to one specific precise
mathematical  definition with this character in unicode.

The current wording is needed  so that authors are free to re-use the
characters in other mathematical contexts.  This re-use is deliberate.
Authors often re-use the symbol because a new concept behaves in a similar
fashion to the the original use of the character. The phrase "often used for
differentials" is about as far as you can go.
[Stan]



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