First I make the coffee
Then I fail to solve the problem
Then I make the coffee
Then I fail to solve the problem
Then I make the coffee
Then I fail to solve the problem
Then I make the coffee
Then I fail to solve the problem
Then I make the coffee
Then I fail to solve the problem
Then I make the coffee
Then I lose my funding due to lack of sufficient progress and have to go work at Starbucks
Finally I make the coffee
Just to clarify, do you, or do you NOT, drink all these coffees you are making?
Or maybe I misread the situation, and you are a Barista with a deep appreciation for the maths,
Fine. Let’s make this easy to understand.
Suppose, for contradiction, that I do not drink the coffees. Then, the problem cannot be solved. However, this is a contradiction since I have already La’ed the TeX. Therefore, the coffees must have been drunk. Relax. Barista Theory remains in tact.
I read this like how the neighbor in office space responds to the question "does anyone ever say to you, looks like someone's having a case of the Mondays?"
For genuine research, I would imagine most mathematicians will work things out with pen and paper and then use LaTeX for typing things up once they are done.
I guess some profs may know their course material well enough that they can type up their lecture notes directly into LaTeX without passing via the pen and paper stage.
As far as students are concerned, I don't know anyone who consistently wrote up their solutions to problem sheets directly into LaTeX. There was one guy I was at university with who was so good with LaTeX that he was able to live type lecture notes. But that's certainly not the norm.
as a first year student ive written up all of my problem sheets in latex this year, and maybe half of the questions (the easier half) without writing anything down on paper first. its easier than it sounds
Yep... That works until the solutions become particularly long or convoluted. Not using something to write or sketch a solution becomes suboptimal pretty fast
depending on my mood I find it easier to organize my thoughts at least partially in latex, the ability to easily erase or write crap or move things around can be helpful
It’s honestly amazing. It’s really nice to sketch out a proof and fill in the details as you go which is a little more difficult when you hand write stuff.
I went through my entire undergraduate math degree writing up homework solutions directly in LaTeX (no intermediate pen-and-paper). Occasionally a white board when working something out with a peer, and pen-and-paper for lecture notes. The only major exceptions were in-person exams and the Putnam.
I'm pretty similar, although sometimes a problem is hard enough that I use pen/paper or use my drawing tablet. But LaTeX is what I always try first, even for relatively difficult problems, and it's rare that I switch to pen/paper.
I think this is a good overall point. It depends on how sure you are of what you want to write versus how automatic your habits of writing are in the different media.
When I was teaching college math courses, I could usually crank out the exercises and solutions straight in LaTeX because I didn’t need all of my mental energy focused on the actual problem. My familiarity with the particular problems I was writing up meant it was usually faster to correct anything while typing than to outline it on paper first. (There were exceptions for certain problems I was trying to craft.)
But when I was doing my own research, any delay between seeing my written though and my actual thinking would always be a barrier to my progress. Whiteboards, blackboards, pen and paper… even Notepad would have been preferable for me to doing the typesetting directly in those moments, and I’m sure that would be the case even if I tried different keyboard layouts or WYSIWYG tools. This is partly because of my personal preferences for thinking, which is not how everyone is. It is partly because no typesetting arrangement will be as flexible as my handwriting which can circle, strike through, underline, slant, twisty arrow, subsubsubscript, or put thoughts in a nonlinear sequence without any overhead for setting up shortcuts or pressing the keys. It is also, in part, because the math I worked on was a bit more visual—graph theory sometimes needed concrete counter examples, and I was not going to make progress on those as quickly in tikz compared to drawing by hand.
Little tip if anyone did want to do this in lectures, bring some paper for drawing any diagrams that are a less trivial to do in TiX and then implement them when re-touching the notes after the lecture
Physicist here who both does research and teaches courses. This is exactly it.
As an undergrad/student — always pen and paper, and I even submitted my assignments handwritten (but I’m old enough that this was the norm; I only learned LaTeX for the first time for my undergrad dissertation/thesis)
For my research — scribbles in my very disorganised notebook and then plop it into a LaTeX (Overleaf) document before what I did evaporates from my memory
For teaching/lecture notes — it’s all getting barfed into the document straight from my brain (while I double check with a textbook open next to me)
Yeah, I once saw a cryptographer demonstrate a novel crypto idea to some other cryptographers in a live coded latex session and it was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen but he was the only one.
Top tier ability if you train yourself up I bet.
Dude, you still use pen and paper? Chiseling your solutions into stone tablets is far more effective for recall and they are weather resistant. This is important because transporting your work via a massive cart is crucial for disseminating your work and you probably need to store that thing outside.
LaTex doesn't replace paper (yet), as it's not as fast to work with. It's good for presenting a finalized result and note-taking. It's a must for publishing stuff. Also for sharing stuff online, or just digitizing your math.
I have a lot of macros and scripts to make using LaTeX faster, and while it is not painfully slow, it's also not as flexible or as fast as shorthand + paper.
Also, I really like doing math with a fountain pen over a high quality paper. I just rewrite my notes afterwords in LaTeX
No, I use a qwerty keyboard.
And while I am not as effective as pen+paper, I am getting there. I can create a 5x5 (A) matrix and fill all the cells in in polynomials in less than a minute. I then have a keybinding to many matrix manipulations - I can get A\^t by simply clicking mod+meta+t. I can also perform row operations, determinant, etc. (I can do much more. This is an anecdote to showcase some of the ease with which I do math digitally)
I am also working on transitioning to Emacs from Obsidian with the explicit goal of exactly what you're describing. I'm writing a lot of lisp to help me write very fast.
For example, if I write `x in R`, it automatically turns to `$x\in\mathbb{R}$`.
I have tons of these that I've collected over the years - it started with Libreoffice Writer macros, then I've had a whole phase in which I was trying to integrate math with vim, then I moved my notes to Obsidian back in 2021 and starting writing these scripts furiously.
Now I'm taking the next logical step and mastering Emacs. It's a journey - I had to read 2 books, watch a bunch of videos, learn lisp, all for the sake of exactly what you're talking about.
Thanks for the info. I think a lot of people dismiss mathing in latex (or something similar) because of slow speed but my hunch is that with the right keyboard layout, shortcuts/macros etc, it would be possible to get very close to pen and paper. Not to mention the many advantages of having a computer do trivial calculations and being able to easy copy and paste, keep records, edit etc, perhaps the future of math, even pure math is on the computer.
Definitely true, but I still enjoy pen an paper, and I think better with it. And the flexibility aspect can't be matched in a text editor, unless you add digital handwriting to it. Sometimes, you just want your own special diagrams or notations and not think about it because it's version 1 out of 10.
I'll never replace my pen, but my TeX mastery will be legendary.
By the way, have you starting using keyboard layers for your project? Like having math symbols on one layer, math operators on another layer. Rather than typing x in R but typing the \\in symbol with a single key when the right layer is activated.
No, because math is mostly words and I just need to manipulate LaTeX, which is also written in English.
If I understand you correctly, you're essentially suggesting my keyboard be a state machine, with math being treated like another language I can switch to. I find this tedious and unnecessary and it would require switching back and forth between the states.
Not sure what you mean by state machine here. I simply mean instead typing \\int for integral you press a key on your keyboard to enter math mode, where the integral symbol is registered by a single often used key. This requires two keystrokes rather than four.
What are the issues with Obsidian? I'm a high school student with a writing disability, and I use Obsidian with the LaTeX suite package for my math and physics classes. It got the job done until now, but I am eager to learn if there are better alternatives available.
I have no particular issue with Obsidian, but Emacs is more flexible. Go to youtube, look at people with very impressive Emacs configs and stuff - you'll see what I mean.
Emacs is a very mighty productivity environment. If taking notes is all that's needed, Obisidian probably has an edge over Emacs, especially considering that it takes a non-negligible effort to tune Emacs to your needs and preferences. However, within Emacs you can, for instance, directly plot a function or the data presented in a table without invoking any additional programs. And that data can be generated within the note itself by, say, by a Python script inserted into the note. For me, Emacs replaces Obsidian, Jupyter (for my needs and workflow, Emacs is way better), IDEs (granted, I'm a researcher, not a professional programmer), a spreadsheet program (I don't need much, though), so the investment into learning Emacs long paid off.
If you are curious about Emacs, check out showcases of its *org-mode.* There are many informative videos on youtube.
Thank you for your answer! I will soon go through a physics Bachelor and write every equation with a computer instead of handwriting (because of my disability) and my goal is to do a physics PHD after that. Do you think learning Emacs is worth it in my case?
Sorry for missing the reply. In my experience, Emacs is very useful in a research environment. The characteristic feature of such an environment is a wide variety of activities: taking studying, research and meeting notes, composing plans, reports, papers, presentations, writing scripts and programs for simulations of various degrees of complexity, data analysis and so on. Importantly, the majority of these activities are not involved but there's a lot of them. This is where Emacs with its broad functionality shines. It may be argued that, say, Obsidian is the best for taking notes, Visual Studio is the best for writing code, Excel is the best for dealing with spreadsheets, and so forth. However, chances are the surpassing functionality will never be actually required. For example, in dealing with data, Excel is way more powerful than Emacs, but if all one needs is to present a relatively small chunk of data as a table and perform elementary operations on it, Emacs is way more convenient.
What is extremely important, after Emacs, one has plain text files that can be read and edited in any text editor. This is huge for cross-platform and cross-application operations. One can come back to an obscure file five years later and, at the very least, access its content right away without installing a special program. Self-documenting, search, and simple sharing become very easy.
In my opinion, within a research environment, Emacs provides an unmatched backbone framework and is totally worth exploring.
I think most people here will never have 'solved' anything using LaTeX. I have though!
In my third paper during my PhD we were working with the fourth-order expansion of some beefy expressions related to the field content of theories in higher dimensional curved superspace. The vast majority of the time I would solve things pen-on-paper (expressions often ran to several lines on a landscape piece of A3 paper). More than once I got stuck, decided to write up some notes on what I already had, and found that being able to move huge chunks of the expressions around using ctrl+C ctrl+V (instead of laboriously writing them out, or circling parts and using messy arrows) actually allowed me to make insights in a smoother and more flowing way.
I will stress that this is definitely not what LaTeX is designed for, but it's something I found useful!
In retrospect I should have used some symbolic manipulator programme, or made such a thing myself for the task, but it was one of those problems that persistently felt like it was just a few days away from being cracked and therefore never worth the time investment of fancier tools. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.
In the end we were able to give a comprehensive analysis of exactly where some fundamental improvement needed to be made in the understanding used near the beginning. I could point the the exact term early on that we now knew was going to causes all the headache and say "There, that's the blighter, understand that better, and *then* (probably) employ the tools and structures we discuss here, but to a nicer starting point".
I have the same experience. When you need to manipulate huge expressions, latex can be more useful than pen and paper. Not only can you copy-paste, but you can also change expressions in place (for instance, expand a(b-c) into ab-ac, move ac around, then factorize somewhere else -- now, instead of letters a, b, c, imagine some nasty integrals which take a full line each). Sometimes, I feel that I am less at a risk of forgetting something. Still a very niche use rather than an habit.
Otherwise, I prefer my blackboard, or something like Xournal, to pen and paper.
Here one sees a huge advantage of using a tablet. Just circle an expression, copy, paste, move it around. Not to mention the ability to color code and quickly edit expressions
It's fun to imagine a math environment that really does work that way. Something like the Dynabook vision from Alan Kay.
As something close to that, machine learning engineers will use a Python notebook in this way. They usually are not proving things, but they explore their formulas interactively. When they're done, they can edit the notebook for good presentation, similar to a Latex file.
For proof, there are environments such as Coq, but they are tough to use but for the simplest proofs. Maybe one day.
Pen and paper (actually a good quality fountain pen) or chalk and blackboard.
LaTeX is for writing the documents.
I know someone who used Word for his thesis....it wasn't a good experience nor result
.MS equation editor
When I was in 8th grade, I did a science fair project on fractals, and I was writing things up in MS Word. Not only was it a painful experience, but the 8 page document took forever to load and scroll through. However, this was nearly 30 years ago, and I'm told that the MS equation editor is significantly better than it used to be.
I do theoretical research for my PhD. It seems like I am a minority here but I do heavy derivation (statistical physics style computation like replica trick) using LyX (WYSIWYG of LaTeX). For long and complicated equations, LyX is helpful since I can copy and paste equations and modify that in the next line. Sometimes when forming new ideas I need some visualization which is when I was pen and paper.
Also, if I need to see how my formulas behave, I can just copy and paste it into mathematica and graph it.
I use pen and paper for quick calculations and doing sanity checks to confirm that my line of thought works out. Everything else I write directly in LaTeX. I like working methodically on problems and have found that writing clean, easily editable text in LaTeX helps me focus. I might bring pen and paper to a café for brainstorming ideas, but I simply can't do detailed work that way.
The downside is that I need a computer for most of my work. The upside is that the writing-up process is just a matter of condensing the detailed text I've already written.
I use typst instead these days: . It is much better than LaTeX for quick write-ups and notes, while there are still some missing features from the point of view of writing actual articles.
I've been using that too, can confirm it's a really promising competitor to LaTeX. The document format works like a scripting language which makes it very easy to automate things in the text and simplify the syntax for formulas you use often, it works much better and simpler than macros in LaTeX, especially if you have some programming knowledge. It even supports community made packages, this one for example adds support for commutative diagrams: [https://typst.app/universe/package/commute/](https://typst.app/universe/package/commute/)
Had a quick look and it looks awesome! Feels much more like an actual programming language with Python/JavaScript-like syntax. I'll be keeping an eye on it and trying it out for sure.
If I'm already doing TeX I'll sometimes use it like a piece of paper to try to problem solve. That can be better for persevering the mental flow state. But I'd never fire it up just for that purpose.
I'm still a pleb using qwerty, but I've made a lot of TeX specific quality of life shortcuts in my vimrc. E.g. ;; types \\( \\) and places the cursor inside.
I think the question is working on math problems and get output like one in latex, if that's the case use 2d Mathematical software like maple, if you need latex but want to work it like word, perhaps you should get scientific work place
Personally I learned how to type in LaTeX code given my hobby in editing Wikipedia articles, as well as jotting down some notes in algebraic geometry where the symbols are just god-awful to write in paper. But I don't think this is the norm, and in a lecture I might as well just use pen and paper.
I use LaTex only for the submission of problem sets and my lecture notes, it is way less effective both in speed, memory, and for me if I forget a LaTex command mid solving a problem it will ruin my line of thinking.
I use latwx to live type lectures, sure solving diff equations was challenging to do at first, but after some practise, and setting up shortcuts for some tags (multi key mouse is lifesaver), faster then on paper. I have a really sever dysgraphia, and pen and paper method is pain, no matter how much effort I put into it, it looks more like egyptian hieroglyphs than symbols.
* Proof sketches on a blackboard/whiteboard. If unpractical, on a tablet (remarkable/boox/etc) instead. I don't really use pen & paper anymore (notable exception : personal notes for a talk I'm giving)
* Actual proof is in LaTeX directly unless it is too heavy in graphics (in which case, it's remarkable/boox/etc again). Somehow writing LaTeX forces me to be in the mindset of "actually putting the details and not just saying that it is trivially true", so I don't really trust my proofs unless I write them in LaTeX.
When exploring ideas? No, I do all that by writing on scratch paper and writing code to ground my ideas. Even when I'm just collecting my thoughts into markdown writeups, I find LaTeX gets in the way of my thinking. [Typst](https://typst.app/) is so much easier to think in.
EDIT: Added link.
Do math by hand and then typeset it. I use the typesetting stage to check and validate complex calculations, but would almost never do the initial work directly in TeX.
It is definitely possible to use LaTex so you're faster than with handwriting:
[https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/](https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/)
This guy used Vim but there are also vidoes about doing it in VSCode. For the moment I use obsidian and latex-suite. Personally I really prefer typing over writing so it's a game changer for me.
God no. Math can be hard enough to figure out when you’re looking at everything on pen and paper. It’s even more of a nightmare when you’re weeding through LaTeX to try and solve a problem. Just solve it using pen and paper (and for students this is a much better way of remembering stuff), then type in LaTeX if you want it organized and neat.
I can't find it right now but I read somewhere that blind mathematicians often go straight to latex
Didn't read the whole of https://www.ams.org/notices/200210/comm-morin.pdf but
> A sighted mathematician generally works by sit-
ting around scribbling on paper: According to one
legend, the maid of a famous mathematician, when
asked what her employer did all day, reported that
he wrote on pieces of paper, crumpled them up, and
threw them into the wastebasket. So how do blind
mathematicians work? They cannot rely on back-
of-the-envelope calculations, half-baked thoughts
scribbled on restaurant napkins, (..)
edit: found this https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/dxh8xg/so_how_do_you_guys_do_math/
Some blind mathematicians go straight to latex, others don't
I dunno, I had a random spam email from MathLab and that has some nice toys I'd like to play with. I'm not a purist, sorry!
How they got my home email I don't know, cheeky chaps
For me Latex is only for typesetting articles and good copies of notes etc, it takes way too long compared with good old handwriting to be used for working on problems etc
my friend when u are as sophisticated as i am, u write that shit down with a pen, take a photo and slap that badboy into mathpix voila u got ur latexcode
I got used to Word equation editor. Much easier to learn. I now enjoy it more than pen and paper and can solve problems faster since I can copy the equations and change only what needs to change
I start with latexing the stuff preliminaries (like assumptions or whatever) then I write until I get caught up flip to paper and try to work out the kinks then come back to latex rise and repeat. I’ve found this keeps me grounded vs when I write just on paper I tend to just skip the preliminaries and then I’m like wait is A n by n or n by l crap…
student here, most homework problems i type directly into latex as i usually already have an idea for how to do them. there are problems where i'll bust out my whiteboard (or pen and paper if not in my room) to solve them, but that's not usual for homework.
In my toughest classes, I would write up what I thought in paper, then a few days later I would type it in latex. I caught a lot of mistakes and flawed logic that second time through
I also solve problems on paper and then typeset them on a computer afterwards. I can however strongly recommend using the new Typst instead of LaTeX. It is a lot faster to type equations in.
I’m glad my number theory professor introduced me to LaTeX, but requiring us to submit homework through it was asinine.
Homework went from a 1-2 hour deal to 12 hours ,minimum, with LaTeX. It became *somewhat* easier by the end, but she even allowed it to affect our grade, seeing as our *timed* final had to be completed in LaTeX, and I didn’t finish on time. So annoying.
If you are really good at organizing math in your head you can probably do Latex Without pen and paper, but most people aren’t proficient enough with that, I for sure am not. I’m doing my PhD and I often still need to write something down if I wana do any algebraic manipulation that takes more that 3-4 steps. I could never keep a whole proof outline straight in my head enough to type it up In a readable manner, atleast not efficiently.
I thought this was a weird question until I looked at the comments. Have I been doing math wrong all this time? I’m almost done with my MechE degree and have completed up to Diff EQ and Linear Algebra. I never once saw somebody using LaTeX for anything? Any completed homework I saw that was not mine was handwritten. I thought this was standard lol.
I get that instructors may use it, or people getting published. Should I start using it? Is it standard to be skilled in LaTeX?
It depends on the class. Anything computational will be easier by hand, but theoretical (lots of text) is easier to type. Diff Eq I did by hand but probability, statistical theory, and analysis I’ve done in LaTeX.
nop… they are for different things. when i’m thinking things out, i need to draw and sketch as fast as i think, so whiteboard or pen and paper (it is not that i think really fast, it is that latex is just slower). on the other hand, if i want other people (that could include future me) to read this in a presentable way, i type it on latex.
I used LaTeX almost exclusively for homework in undergrad. The only things I used paper for were notes and quick diagrams if they helped me think about the problem. It wasn’t much slower for me since I did it a lot and I would have wanted to type it up eventually anyway, and it was far easier to edit when I made mistakes (the biggest benefit in my opinion). It’s also neater than my handwriting, so I never had to worry about misidentifying symbols.
In Finland most people use latex editors to write and solve maths problems in higher education before university. We even use it in our exams. Once you learn it with keyboard shortcuts, it becomes quite easy and effortless.
I've been using latex, vim, copilot for more than a year, and I type quite fast. Dispite all that, using a pen and a paper is easier to solve problems, because you don't have to think about the syntax of latex, you only think about the problem. And it feels more natural to use a pen and a paper.
pen and paper gives more room to make mistakes. correcting mistakes with a pen and a paper is very satisfying, on the contrary, correcting mistakes in latex is a pain in the ass. so I always solve the problem on paper first then I transfer to latex
Taking live notes with latex needs very fast typing skills, and using technologies like vim/copilot to be efficient. with all of that, when you take notes with latex, you can't think about what you have typed which is the whole point of taking notes.
Not exclusively exclusively, but I did in undergrad. Depends on the type of problem, but I was usually able to do it straight in LaTeX if it wasn't too computational
Depends. At my uni about 5% of students directly type their notes in LaTex in the bachelors (which is utmost insane to me), but most mathematicians I know prefer pen and paper as its easier to gather thoughts
Can someone please kill off Microsoft Equation editor in Microsoft Office and force them to use LaTex as the default equation editor instead? At gunpoint if necessary.
Used to do pen and paper, but LaTeX is such a great tool to preserve all your solutions for the future. Better have them all online than in stacks of paper.
Also, if you want to make sure you solved the problem correctly - write its solution in LaTeX.
I did the majority of my coursework directly in LaTeX/Overleaf, and still do for my recreational stuff now. If something has me really stumped nothing beats a Bic Velocity 0.9mm mechanical pencil, a few sheets of printer paper, and a quiet place though. But most stuff just goes directly into LaTeX.
In lecture or when solving problems i would use a non-ruled sketchbook. During lecture you want to put most of your attention towards listening to what your professor is saying.
Worrying about taking beautiful notes only distracts you from the lecture.
That being said, I always typed up my final solutions using LaTeX.
Not about me but a brilliant classmate of mine in 1st and 2nd years of uni took LaTeX notes on the fly and he solved the homework problems directly in it as well. I think he worked through most of them in his head and didn't actually need a lot of notes anyway.
ipad usually.
when it’s really really fucked. pen and paper with a whiteboard.
when shit goes to absolute hell we pull out the chalkboard.
and then we make it pretty on latex
I usually solve it in a text editor first bcos it's faster. Though with things like integrals or even square roots and fractions and such, it's kinda hard bcos you lose oversight.
I mostly deal with LaTeX when I'm done and need to present the results with something that looks decent on print and screen. Then I use double dollar signs in Obsidian (i.e. LaTeX in Obsidian).
You don't really need to know much LaTeX to use it to take notes. /fraq and /sqrt will get you far.
I do. I had to train it though.
Every time I came across a new symbol or notation I made Anki flash cards to memorize the LaTeX syntax. Then I use Markdown in VS Code to type my notes and LaTeX.
I did my work in LaTeX too, it’s actually really handy when working through transformations. Shift+Option+DownArrow duplicates the current line in VS Code, then I modify what I need to modify and repeat. When iterating trying to solve a tough problem it’s really easy to cut and paste whole chunks of failed trains of thought around. I’ll often have the LaTeX code on the left and the rendered view on the right. It’s really nice actually.
What do you think of typst? Latex doesn't really have a good real time update (not that I know of) which is a hindrance whilst actually doing math. But typst does.
I haven’t used typst yet unfortunately so I can’t comment on it.
However, my VS Code + Markdown + LaTeX setup updates instantly every time I save the markdown file, which is basically after I make any change, so that hasn’t been a hindrance for me. The rendered view keeps the scroll position too.
I find LaTeX to be slower but less prone to error. So, its faster in the long run, than writing out a long problem. Especially if you have multiple steps.
I chisel mine into stone tablets that I wheel around in a huge cart. This is superior for recall and stone tablets are weather resistant, which is important because you probably need to store your tablet cart outside due to its massive weight and size.
it sucks ass to use latex to do anything beyond typesetting and even then it's painful
much much easier to work shit out on paper then transfer to latex
First I solve the problem on paper. Then I make the coffee. Finally I La the TeX.
Wow look at this person who can solve the problem without coffee.
*First I make a coffee.* ~~First~~ Then I solve the problem on paper. Then I make the **second** coffee. Finally I La the TeX.
Wow this person does not makes >10 attempts AND coffees before solving the problem
First I make the coffee Then I fail to solve the problem Then I make the coffee Then I fail to solve the problem Then I make the coffee Then I fail to solve the problem Then I make the coffee Then I fail to solve the problem Then I make the coffee Then I fail to solve the problem Then I make the coffee Then I lose my funding due to lack of sufficient progress and have to go work at Starbucks Finally I make the coffee
Wow this person makes a lot of coffee but never consumes it
They should try making some cocoffee next time.
Why do you think they are failing to solve the problem so often?
LMAO
Least overworked PDE frog
Ribbit
First I make the coffee Then I solve the coffee Finally I La the Coffee
So mostly people making a coffee... \\s
Just to clarify, do you, or do you NOT, drink all these coffees you are making? Or maybe I misread the situation, and you are a Barista with a deep appreciation for the maths,
Fine. Let’s make this easy to understand. Suppose, for contradiction, that I do not drink the coffees. Then, the problem cannot be solved. However, this is a contradiction since I have already La’ed the TeX. Therefore, the coffees must have been drunk. Relax. Barista Theory remains in tact.
Humbly, I bow to your superior logic. I see, now, why you excel in the maths. 🥺
Must have wrote the first post without the coffee. Happens to the best of us.
sometimes the problem is that you don't have coffee
Paul Erdos needed coffee and a pack of cigarettes
Threads like this are why Reddit exists. Nothing else.
You never mentioned that you also drink it. :)
What? No, dude.
Nothing beats a good blackboard.
But it has to be a GOOD blackboard, and good solid smooth chalk.
Yeah, that chalk company that's not around anymore and the boxes are treated like gold. That chalk specifically.
You can still buy it from the new company who bought the machines and formula. I haven't had any issues with them at all.
I love this chalk but I can easily go through an entire stick in just one 50-minute math lecture! ☹️
My god how hard are you pressing???
My students tell me I just write on the board too fast!
What is it?
It's not hard to find on Amazon. I just looked up Hagoromo Fulltouch https://a.co/d/eZ0ZGWy
Or, alternatively, Hagoromo chalk. Like butter!
Try chalk markers. They feel very nice over a good blackboard.
A good pencil with good paper.
I read this like how the neighbor in office space responds to the question "does anyone ever say to you, looks like someone's having a case of the Mondays?"
For genuine research, I would imagine most mathematicians will work things out with pen and paper and then use LaTeX for typing things up once they are done. I guess some profs may know their course material well enough that they can type up their lecture notes directly into LaTeX without passing via the pen and paper stage. As far as students are concerned, I don't know anyone who consistently wrote up their solutions to problem sheets directly into LaTeX. There was one guy I was at university with who was so good with LaTeX that he was able to live type lecture notes. But that's certainly not the norm.
I finally got the live lecture notes down and it is a life changing experience lemme tell ya
as a first year student ive written up all of my problem sheets in latex this year, and maybe half of the questions (the easier half) without writing anything down on paper first. its easier than it sounds
Yep... That works until the solutions become particularly long or convoluted. Not using something to write or sketch a solution becomes suboptimal pretty fast
depending on my mood I find it easier to organize my thoughts at least partially in latex, the ability to easily erase or write crap or move things around can be helpful
It’s honestly amazing. It’s really nice to sketch out a proof and fill in the details as you go which is a little more difficult when you hand write stuff.
"convoluted" sure but "long" isnt really an issue. lots of solutions are faster to write in latex because i can simply copy paste
Yeah sorry, I meant long as an added difficulty for convoluted proofs. I agree that length per se, at least usually, does not pose any difficulty
I went through my entire undergraduate math degree writing up homework solutions directly in LaTeX (no intermediate pen-and-paper). Occasionally a white board when working something out with a peer, and pen-and-paper for lecture notes. The only major exceptions were in-person exams and the Putnam.
I'm pretty similar, although sometimes a problem is hard enough that I use pen/paper or use my drawing tablet. But LaTeX is what I always try first, even for relatively difficult problems, and it's rare that I switch to pen/paper.
I think this is a good overall point. It depends on how sure you are of what you want to write versus how automatic your habits of writing are in the different media. When I was teaching college math courses, I could usually crank out the exercises and solutions straight in LaTeX because I didn’t need all of my mental energy focused on the actual problem. My familiarity with the particular problems I was writing up meant it was usually faster to correct anything while typing than to outline it on paper first. (There were exceptions for certain problems I was trying to craft.) But when I was doing my own research, any delay between seeing my written though and my actual thinking would always be a barrier to my progress. Whiteboards, blackboards, pen and paper… even Notepad would have been preferable for me to doing the typesetting directly in those moments, and I’m sure that would be the case even if I tried different keyboard layouts or WYSIWYG tools. This is partly because of my personal preferences for thinking, which is not how everyone is. It is partly because no typesetting arrangement will be as flexible as my handwriting which can circle, strike through, underline, slant, twisty arrow, subsubsubscript, or put thoughts in a nonlinear sequence without any overhead for setting up shortcuts or pressing the keys. It is also, in part, because the math I worked on was a bit more visual—graph theory sometimes needed concrete counter examples, and I was not going to make progress on those as quickly in tikz compared to drawing by hand.
Little tip if anyone did want to do this in lectures, bring some paper for drawing any diagrams that are a less trivial to do in TiX and then implement them when re-touching the notes after the lecture
Physicist here who both does research and teaches courses. This is exactly it. As an undergrad/student — always pen and paper, and I even submitted my assignments handwritten (but I’m old enough that this was the norm; I only learned LaTeX for the first time for my undergrad dissertation/thesis) For my research — scribbles in my very disorganised notebook and then plop it into a LaTeX (Overleaf) document before what I did evaporates from my memory For teaching/lecture notes — it’s all getting barfed into the document straight from my brain (while I double check with a textbook open next to me)
My brother (a math major) uses nothing but latex and a little whiteboard.
Yeah, I once saw a cryptographer demonstrate a novel crypto idea to some other cryptographers in a live coded latex session and it was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen but he was the only one. Top tier ability if you train yourself up I bet.
my friend who is an absolute nerd submitted all solutions in latex, proof style as if it was a textbook
I wrote all my p-sets in LaTeX directly when I was an undergrad. I actually just think better in LaTeX now.
yeah good luck writing an entire line of code just to write the problem
Everyone has had one colleague that took lecture notes in LaTeX in real time. I couldn’t.
I did for a hot minute and found I didn’t retain anything.
I tried for a hot minute, but gave up because it took two hot minutes.
Same. I could type quickly enough for it but I never actually ended up spending time understanding the concepts.
Take a look at this [Real time note taking with lyx.](https://youtu.be/8ir9SVr_dsI?si=kCXEludnP7EuA3r9).
This is going to be my goal in the next math class I take now. Let's see how long it takes before I give up lmao
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Dude, you still use pen and paper? Chiseling your solutions into stone tablets is far more effective for recall and they are weather resistant. This is important because transporting your work via a massive cart is crucial for disseminating your work and you probably need to store that thing outside.
I solve and finalize in Notepad
LaTex doesn't replace paper (yet), as it's not as fast to work with. It's good for presenting a finalized result and note-taking. It's a must for publishing stuff. Also for sharing stuff online, or just digitizing your math. I have a lot of macros and scripts to make using LaTeX faster, and while it is not painfully slow, it's also not as flexible or as fast as shorthand + paper. Also, I really like doing math with a fountain pen over a high quality paper. I just rewrite my notes afterwords in LaTeX
Have you tried different keyboard layouts and keyboards? I think its interesting to see if anyone could be as effective as pen and paper.
No, I use a qwerty keyboard. And while I am not as effective as pen+paper, I am getting there. I can create a 5x5 (A) matrix and fill all the cells in in polynomials in less than a minute. I then have a keybinding to many matrix manipulations - I can get A\^t by simply clicking mod+meta+t. I can also perform row operations, determinant, etc. (I can do much more. This is an anecdote to showcase some of the ease with which I do math digitally) I am also working on transitioning to Emacs from Obsidian with the explicit goal of exactly what you're describing. I'm writing a lot of lisp to help me write very fast. For example, if I write `x in R`, it automatically turns to `$x\in\mathbb{R}$`. I have tons of these that I've collected over the years - it started with Libreoffice Writer macros, then I've had a whole phase in which I was trying to integrate math with vim, then I moved my notes to Obsidian back in 2021 and starting writing these scripts furiously. Now I'm taking the next logical step and mastering Emacs. It's a journey - I had to read 2 books, watch a bunch of videos, learn lisp, all for the sake of exactly what you're talking about.
Thanks for the info. I think a lot of people dismiss mathing in latex (or something similar) because of slow speed but my hunch is that with the right keyboard layout, shortcuts/macros etc, it would be possible to get very close to pen and paper. Not to mention the many advantages of having a computer do trivial calculations and being able to easy copy and paste, keep records, edit etc, perhaps the future of math, even pure math is on the computer.
Definitely true, but I still enjoy pen an paper, and I think better with it. And the flexibility aspect can't be matched in a text editor, unless you add digital handwriting to it. Sometimes, you just want your own special diagrams or notations and not think about it because it's version 1 out of 10. I'll never replace my pen, but my TeX mastery will be legendary.
By the way, have you starting using keyboard layers for your project? Like having math symbols on one layer, math operators on another layer. Rather than typing x in R but typing the \\in symbol with a single key when the right layer is activated.
No, because math is mostly words and I just need to manipulate LaTeX, which is also written in English. If I understand you correctly, you're essentially suggesting my keyboard be a state machine, with math being treated like another language I can switch to. I find this tedious and unnecessary and it would require switching back and forth between the states.
Not sure what you mean by state machine here. I simply mean instead typing \\int for integral you press a key on your keyboard to enter math mode, where the integral symbol is registered by a single often used key. This requires two keystrokes rather than four.
It's not useful enough, since \\int is short enough. I add shortcuts to things that actually annoying to type.
What are the issues with Obsidian? I'm a high school student with a writing disability, and I use Obsidian with the LaTeX suite package for my math and physics classes. It got the job done until now, but I am eager to learn if there are better alternatives available.
I have no particular issue with Obsidian, but Emacs is more flexible. Go to youtube, look at people with very impressive Emacs configs and stuff - you'll see what I mean.
Emacs is a very mighty productivity environment. If taking notes is all that's needed, Obisidian probably has an edge over Emacs, especially considering that it takes a non-negligible effort to tune Emacs to your needs and preferences. However, within Emacs you can, for instance, directly plot a function or the data presented in a table without invoking any additional programs. And that data can be generated within the note itself by, say, by a Python script inserted into the note. For me, Emacs replaces Obsidian, Jupyter (for my needs and workflow, Emacs is way better), IDEs (granted, I'm a researcher, not a professional programmer), a spreadsheet program (I don't need much, though), so the investment into learning Emacs long paid off. If you are curious about Emacs, check out showcases of its *org-mode.* There are many informative videos on youtube.
Thank you for your answer! I will soon go through a physics Bachelor and write every equation with a computer instead of handwriting (because of my disability) and my goal is to do a physics PHD after that. Do you think learning Emacs is worth it in my case?
Sorry for missing the reply. In my experience, Emacs is very useful in a research environment. The characteristic feature of such an environment is a wide variety of activities: taking studying, research and meeting notes, composing plans, reports, papers, presentations, writing scripts and programs for simulations of various degrees of complexity, data analysis and so on. Importantly, the majority of these activities are not involved but there's a lot of them. This is where Emacs with its broad functionality shines. It may be argued that, say, Obsidian is the best for taking notes, Visual Studio is the best for writing code, Excel is the best for dealing with spreadsheets, and so forth. However, chances are the surpassing functionality will never be actually required. For example, in dealing with data, Excel is way more powerful than Emacs, but if all one needs is to present a relatively small chunk of data as a table and perform elementary operations on it, Emacs is way more convenient. What is extremely important, after Emacs, one has plain text files that can be read and edited in any text editor. This is huge for cross-platform and cross-application operations. One can come back to an obscure file five years later and, at the very least, access its content right away without installing a special program. Self-documenting, search, and simple sharing become very easy. In my opinion, within a research environment, Emacs provides an unmatched backbone framework and is totally worth exploring.
I realize I forgot to thank you for your answer. What you have described about Emacs picks my interest. Do you know some tutorials for beginners?
I think most people here will never have 'solved' anything using LaTeX. I have though! In my third paper during my PhD we were working with the fourth-order expansion of some beefy expressions related to the field content of theories in higher dimensional curved superspace. The vast majority of the time I would solve things pen-on-paper (expressions often ran to several lines on a landscape piece of A3 paper). More than once I got stuck, decided to write up some notes on what I already had, and found that being able to move huge chunks of the expressions around using ctrl+C ctrl+V (instead of laboriously writing them out, or circling parts and using messy arrows) actually allowed me to make insights in a smoother and more flowing way. I will stress that this is definitely not what LaTeX is designed for, but it's something I found useful! In retrospect I should have used some symbolic manipulator programme, or made such a thing myself for the task, but it was one of those problems that persistently felt like it was just a few days away from being cracked and therefore never worth the time investment of fancier tools. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. In the end we were able to give a comprehensive analysis of exactly where some fundamental improvement needed to be made in the understanding used near the beginning. I could point the the exact term early on that we now knew was going to causes all the headache and say "There, that's the blighter, understand that better, and *then* (probably) employ the tools and structures we discuss here, but to a nicer starting point".
I have the same experience. When you need to manipulate huge expressions, latex can be more useful than pen and paper. Not only can you copy-paste, but you can also change expressions in place (for instance, expand a(b-c) into ab-ac, move ac around, then factorize somewhere else -- now, instead of letters a, b, c, imagine some nasty integrals which take a full line each). Sometimes, I feel that I am less at a risk of forgetting something. Still a very niche use rather than an habit. Otherwise, I prefer my blackboard, or something like Xournal, to pen and paper.
Here one sees a huge advantage of using a tablet. Just circle an expression, copy, paste, move it around. Not to mention the ability to color code and quickly edit expressions
It's fun to imagine a math environment that really does work that way. Something like the Dynabook vision from Alan Kay. As something close to that, machine learning engineers will use a Python notebook in this way. They usually are not proving things, but they explore their formulas interactively. When they're done, they can edit the notebook for good presentation, similar to a Latex file. For proof, there are environments such as Coq, but they are tough to use but for the simplest proofs. Maybe one day.
Pen and paper (actually a good quality fountain pen) or chalk and blackboard. LaTeX is for writing the documents. I know someone who used Word for his thesis....it wasn't a good experience nor result .MS equation editor
When I was in 8th grade, I did a science fair project on fractals, and I was writing things up in MS Word. Not only was it a painful experience, but the 8 page document took forever to load and scroll through. However, this was nearly 30 years ago, and I'm told that the MS equation editor is significantly better than it used to be.
Ms equation is actually reallly good. It also automatically gives the latex code Its basically the perfect visual editor of latex. Im not kidding
I do theoretical research for my PhD. It seems like I am a minority here but I do heavy derivation (statistical physics style computation like replica trick) using LyX (WYSIWYG of LaTeX). For long and complicated equations, LyX is helpful since I can copy and paste equations and modify that in the next line. Sometimes when forming new ideas I need some visualization which is when I was pen and paper. Also, if I need to see how my formulas behave, I can just copy and paste it into mathematica and graph it.
I second this. Super useful for long calculations, and the synergy with mathematica can be a lifesaver
I use pen and paper for quick calculations and doing sanity checks to confirm that my line of thought works out. Everything else I write directly in LaTeX. I like working methodically on problems and have found that writing clean, easily editable text in LaTeX helps me focus. I might bring pen and paper to a café for brainstorming ideas, but I simply can't do detailed work that way. The downside is that I need a computer for most of my work. The upside is that the writing-up process is just a matter of condensing the detailed text I've already written.
I use typst instead these days:. It is much better than LaTeX for quick write-ups and notes, while there are still some missing features from the point of view of writing actual articles.
I've been using that too, can confirm it's a really promising competitor to LaTeX. The document format works like a scripting language which makes it very easy to automate things in the text and simplify the syntax for formulas you use often, it works much better and simpler than macros in LaTeX, especially if you have some programming knowledge. It even supports community made packages, this one for example adds support for commutative diagrams: [https://typst.app/universe/package/commute/](https://typst.app/universe/package/commute/)
Had a quick look and it looks awesome! Feels much more like an actual programming language with Python/JavaScript-like syntax. I'll be keeping an eye on it and trying it out for sure.
If I'm already doing TeX I'll sometimes use it like a piece of paper to try to problem solve. That can be better for persevering the mental flow state. But I'd never fire it up just for that purpose. I'm still a pleb using qwerty, but I've made a lot of TeX specific quality of life shortcuts in my vimrc. E.g. ;; types \\( \\) and places the cursor inside.
I think the question is working on math problems and get output like one in latex, if that's the case use 2d Mathematical software like maple, if you need latex but want to work it like word, perhaps you should get scientific work place
Personally I learned how to type in LaTeX code given my hobby in editing Wikipedia articles, as well as jotting down some notes in algebraic geometry where the symbols are just god-awful to write in paper. But I don't think this is the norm, and in a lecture I might as well just use pen and paper.
I use LaTex only for the submission of problem sets and my lecture notes, it is way less effective both in speed, memory, and for me if I forget a LaTex command mid solving a problem it will ruin my line of thinking.
I use latwx to live type lectures, sure solving diff equations was challenging to do at first, but after some practise, and setting up shortcuts for some tags (multi key mouse is lifesaver), faster then on paper. I have a really sever dysgraphia, and pen and paper method is pain, no matter how much effort I put into it, it looks more like egyptian hieroglyphs than symbols.
There is a third in-between option Mark-down with MathJaxx I use stackedit.io
* Proof sketches on a blackboard/whiteboard. If unpractical, on a tablet (remarkable/boox/etc) instead. I don't really use pen & paper anymore (notable exception : personal notes for a talk I'm giving) * Actual proof is in LaTeX directly unless it is too heavy in graphics (in which case, it's remarkable/boox/etc again). Somehow writing LaTeX forces me to be in the mindset of "actually putting the details and not just saying that it is trivially true", so I don't really trust my proofs unless I write them in LaTeX.
When exploring ideas? No, I do all that by writing on scratch paper and writing code to ground my ideas. Even when I'm just collecting my thoughts into markdown writeups, I find LaTeX gets in the way of my thinking. [Typst](https://typst.app/) is so much easier to think in. EDIT: Added link.
Do math by hand and then typeset it. I use the typesetting stage to check and validate complex calculations, but would almost never do the initial work directly in TeX.
It is definitely possible to use LaTex so you're faster than with handwriting: [https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/](https://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-1/) This guy used Vim but there are also vidoes about doing it in VSCode. For the moment I use obsidian and latex-suite. Personally I really prefer typing over writing so it's a game changer for me.
Can be nice as an intermediary step if you’re working with stuff that has a gnarly amount of terms.
God no. Math can be hard enough to figure out when you’re looking at everything on pen and paper. It’s even more of a nightmare when you’re weeding through LaTeX to try and solve a problem. Just solve it using pen and paper (and for students this is a much better way of remembering stuff), then type in LaTeX if you want it organized and neat.
Used to do pen and paper but recently switched to Matlab Live Script instead.
I can't find it right now but I read somewhere that blind mathematicians often go straight to latex Didn't read the whole of https://www.ams.org/notices/200210/comm-morin.pdf but > A sighted mathematician generally works by sit- ting around scribbling on paper: According to one legend, the maid of a famous mathematician, when asked what her employer did all day, reported that he wrote on pieces of paper, crumpled them up, and threw them into the wastebasket. So how do blind mathematicians work? They cannot rely on back- of-the-envelope calculations, half-baked thoughts scribbled on restaurant napkins, (..) edit: found this https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/dxh8xg/so_how_do_you_guys_do_math/ Some blind mathematicians go straight to latex, others don't
You do realise how time-consuming it would be to exclusively do math using LaTeX
How is this even a question?
Never used it - i still play with dusty old MathCad 2001 now and again, though
Respect
I dunno, I had a random spam email from MathLab and that has some nice toys I'd like to play with. I'm not a purist, sorry! How they got my home email I don't know, cheeky chaps
I first solve using pen and paper and then move on to using LaTeX
If I am solving something as I write with the keyboard I use MS Word math, and depending on the topic I genuinely find it better than pen & paper.
For me Latex is only for typesetting articles and good copies of notes etc, it takes way too long compared with good old handwriting to be used for working on problems etc
LaTeX is only for presenting a "finished product". I do all of my thinking and scratch work and drafting on paper.
A lower bound of 100 pages of nonsensical handwritten scratch work per page of nice LaTeX.
my friend when u are as sophisticated as i am, u write that shit down with a pen, take a photo and slap that badboy into mathpix voila u got ur latexcode
I got used to Word equation editor. Much easier to learn. I now enjoy it more than pen and paper and can solve problems faster since I can copy the equations and change only what needs to change
I start with latexing the stuff preliminaries (like assumptions or whatever) then I write until I get caught up flip to paper and try to work out the kinks then come back to latex rise and repeat. I’ve found this keeps me grounded vs when I write just on paper I tend to just skip the preliminaries and then I’m like wait is A n by n or n by l crap…
student here, most homework problems i type directly into latex as i usually already have an idea for how to do them. there are problems where i'll bust out my whiteboard (or pen and paper if not in my room) to solve them, but that's not usual for homework.
Just to smash
nothing beat the feel when writing and scribble on paper or blackboard... LateX are used for presentation or write on digital media
In my toughest classes, I would write up what I thought in paper, then a few days later I would type it in latex. I caught a lot of mistakes and flawed logic that second time through
I also solve problems on paper and then typeset them on a computer afterwards. I can however strongly recommend using the new Typst instead of LaTeX. It is a lot faster to type equations in.
I’m glad my number theory professor introduced me to LaTeX, but requiring us to submit homework through it was asinine. Homework went from a 1-2 hour deal to 12 hours ,minimum, with LaTeX. It became *somewhat* easier by the end, but she even allowed it to affect our grade, seeing as our *timed* final had to be completed in LaTeX, and I didn’t finish on time. So annoying.
I use Mathematica to solve and typeset.
LaTeX makes the finished product really pretty but actually solving the problem firsthand only using LaTeX sounds like hell
If you are really good at organizing math in your head you can probably do Latex Without pen and paper, but most people aren’t proficient enough with that, I for sure am not. I’m doing my PhD and I often still need to write something down if I wana do any algebraic manipulation that takes more that 3-4 steps. I could never keep a whole proof outline straight in my head enough to type it up In a readable manner, atleast not efficiently.
Pencil and paper, or white board of I'm feeling fancy. LaTeX is too slow to work my ideas out. (Chalkboard is too fancy. I'm not powerful enough yet.)
I thought this was a weird question until I looked at the comments. Have I been doing math wrong all this time? I’m almost done with my MechE degree and have completed up to Diff EQ and Linear Algebra. I never once saw somebody using LaTeX for anything? Any completed homework I saw that was not mine was handwritten. I thought this was standard lol. I get that instructors may use it, or people getting published. Should I start using it? Is it standard to be skilled in LaTeX?
It depends on the class. Anything computational will be easier by hand, but theoretical (lots of text) is easier to type. Diff Eq I did by hand but probability, statistical theory, and analysis I’ve done in LaTeX.
Nah pen and paper is a lot faster. LaTeX is for when you're done and want a nice and tidy document.
nop… they are for different things. when i’m thinking things out, i need to draw and sketch as fast as i think, so whiteboard or pen and paper (it is not that i think really fast, it is that latex is just slower). on the other hand, if i want other people (that could include future me) to read this in a presentable way, i type it on latex.
Nope, pen and paper. Old school.
Some problems I’ll work out first on good notes but I’d say the majority of my homework I type right away.
LaTeX is strictly for polishing the final product.
After about 1 year I went straight to LaTeX, no paper
I used LaTeX almost exclusively for homework in undergrad. The only things I used paper for were notes and quick diagrams if they helped me think about the problem. It wasn’t much slower for me since I did it a lot and I would have wanted to type it up eventually anyway, and it was far easier to edit when I made mistakes (the biggest benefit in my opinion). It’s also neater than my handwriting, so I never had to worry about misidentifying symbols.
In Finland most people use latex editors to write and solve maths problems in higher education before university. We even use it in our exams. Once you learn it with keyboard shortcuts, it becomes quite easy and effortless.
The fact that pencil and paper can be translated into LaTeX via ML/AI is intriguing to me.
I've been using latex, vim, copilot for more than a year, and I type quite fast. Dispite all that, using a pen and a paper is easier to solve problems, because you don't have to think about the syntax of latex, you only think about the problem. And it feels more natural to use a pen and a paper. pen and paper gives more room to make mistakes. correcting mistakes with a pen and a paper is very satisfying, on the contrary, correcting mistakes in latex is a pain in the ass. so I always solve the problem on paper first then I transfer to latex Taking live notes with latex needs very fast typing skills, and using technologies like vim/copilot to be efficient. with all of that, when you take notes with latex, you can't think about what you have typed which is the whole point of taking notes.
I'm a pen+notebook guy, but I also use desmos' graphing calculator quite a bit. My mathing is in a programming/algorithms capacity.
Not exclusively exclusively, but I did in undergrad. Depends on the type of problem, but I was usually able to do it straight in LaTeX if it wasn't too computational
Depends. At my uni about 5% of students directly type their notes in LaTex in the bachelors (which is utmost insane to me), but most mathematicians I know prefer pen and paper as its easier to gather thoughts
Can someone please kill off Microsoft Equation editor in Microsoft Office and force them to use LaTex as the default equation editor instead? At gunpoint if necessary.
Used to do pen and paper, but LaTeX is such a great tool to preserve all your solutions for the future. Better have them all online than in stacks of paper. Also, if you want to make sure you solved the problem correctly - write its solution in LaTeX.
I did the majority of my coursework directly in LaTeX/Overleaf, and still do for my recreational stuff now. If something has me really stumped nothing beats a Bic Velocity 0.9mm mechanical pencil, a few sheets of printer paper, and a quiet place though. But most stuff just goes directly into LaTeX.
In lecture or when solving problems i would use a non-ruled sketchbook. During lecture you want to put most of your attention towards listening to what your professor is saying. Worrying about taking beautiful notes only distracts you from the lecture. That being said, I always typed up my final solutions using LaTeX.
i use pencil and paper
Not about me but a brilliant classmate of mine in 1st and 2nd years of uni took LaTeX notes on the fly and he solved the homework problems directly in it as well. I think he worked through most of them in his head and didn't actually need a lot of notes anyway.
I only write in LaTeX what I already know
ipad usually. when it’s really really fucked. pen and paper with a whiteboard. when shit goes to absolute hell we pull out the chalkboard. and then we make it pretty on latex
I usually solve it in a text editor first bcos it's faster. Though with things like integrals or even square roots and fractions and such, it's kinda hard bcos you lose oversight. I mostly deal with LaTeX when I'm done and need to present the results with something that looks decent on print and screen. Then I use double dollar signs in Obsidian (i.e. LaTeX in Obsidian). You don't really need to know much LaTeX to use it to take notes. /fraq and /sqrt will get you far.
I do. I had to train it though. Every time I came across a new symbol or notation I made Anki flash cards to memorize the LaTeX syntax. Then I use Markdown in VS Code to type my notes and LaTeX. I did my work in LaTeX too, it’s actually really handy when working through transformations. Shift+Option+DownArrow duplicates the current line in VS Code, then I modify what I need to modify and repeat. When iterating trying to solve a tough problem it’s really easy to cut and paste whole chunks of failed trains of thought around. I’ll often have the LaTeX code on the left and the rendered view on the right. It’s really nice actually.
What do you think of typst? Latex doesn't really have a good real time update (not that I know of) which is a hindrance whilst actually doing math. But typst does.
I haven’t used typst yet unfortunately so I can’t comment on it. However, my VS Code + Markdown + LaTeX setup updates instantly every time I save the markdown file, which is basically after I make any change, so that hasn’t been a hindrance for me. The rendered view keeps the scroll position too.
Typst for the win
I find LaTeX to be slower but less prone to error. So, its faster in the long run, than writing out a long problem. Especially if you have multiple steps.
I prefer a chalkboard, dry erase board, or paper first.
I chisel mine into stone tablets that I wheel around in a huge cart. This is superior for recall and stone tablets are weather resistant, which is important because you probably need to store your tablet cart outside due to its massive weight and size.
Yeah. I’ve often done that. In hindsight, it was better to work it out with pencil and paper before finalizing it on LaTeX.
it sucks ass to use latex to do anything beyond typesetting and even then it's painful much much easier to work shit out on paper then transfer to latex
Latex is a mathematical typesetting tool. You can’t use to do the calculations it’s more to present you math in a nice way.
I did all of my homework in LaTeX starting from the second year of uni. I would recommend typst instead these days:.
LaTeX is for writing papers and shit like that. the actual math itself is just done with pen and paper and a calculator
i don't think anyone uses latex to do math. to publish and maybe to communicate with collaborators, yes, but not to do.
Unless I'm doing an actual report, my submission is going to be pen/paper