RE: [EXTERNAL] Unicode 14

Hi Will!

I found your Γ function example on p.481 of Courant and Hilbert in the section on Bessel functions. Seems Courant used upright upper-case sans-serif gamma for the gamma function and used upright upper-case serifed gamma for boundaries. So it appears that he used the two upper-case upright gammas contrastively, which is essential if both are to be encoded in Unicode. Have to admit, I find the upright sans-serif gamma a bit jarring for the gamma function, but it's there! (I own copies of both volumes of Courant and Hilbert). These examples might be adequate to convince the UTC to encode a math sans-serif upright Greek alphabet. But there's likely to be some push back, so it would be great to see the two math styles used contrastively in the same equation. Also I suspect the committee would want to see contrastive usage for sans-serif lower-case Greek letters if they too are proposed. The fact that LaTeX can typeset these characters contrastively isn't adequate for the encoding principles. There have to be actual published cases.

Character proposals are submitted using one of the forms downloadable from Proposal Summary Form (unicode.org)<https://www.unicode.org/L2/summary.html>. I use http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14232-n4502-form.doc and then save it as pdf for the UTC.

Thanks,
Murray

From: Will Robertson <wspr81@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2021 6:40 AM
To: Murray Sargent <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>
Cc: davidc@nag.co.uk; www-math@w3.org
Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL] Unicode 14

Dear Murray,

Great to hear from you.


On 26 Jun 2021, at 2:09 pm, Murray Sargent <murrays@exchange.microsoft.com<mailto:murrays@exchange.microsoft.com>> wrote:

We only targeted math-script styles of A-Z in this effort (see 20275r-math-calligraphic.pdf (unicode.org<https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Funicode.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cmurrays%40exchange.microsoft.com%7Cb232c5dcecf54ccb126d08d938a7e129%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C0%7C0%7C637603116704083911%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=6CW99qDCpzsj7KACkI3XrG5id4xkjquD11OU7%2FbDtB0%3D&reserved=0>)). That was tricky in its own right due to differing current usage of the math-script characters. Adding sans-serif normal weight Greek letters has different considerations and can be a separate proposal.

I can certainly appreciate that, and I definitely agree the two proposals are better considered separately.

What is the best way forwards on the Greek sans serif front? Would it be helpful for me to write some kind of broad summary of the issues currently and the benefits to adding the new blocks?

For what it is worth. as well as the logical reasons for including these blocks and that (La)TeX has always had (some) sans Greek glyphs available, after many queries with my colleagues I finally stumbled upon extant evidence of sans serif Greek in literature:

[cid:image001.jpg@01D76A9F.87165110]

Courant, R.; Hilbert, D. (1953), Methods of mathematical physics, I, New York, N.Y.: Interscience Publishers, Inc., ISBN 0-471-50447-5, MR 0065391

Best regards,
Will Robertson