# MathJax has been enabled on our site!

That means we can have actual fancy mathematical equations expressed as such without resorting to pseudocode, uneditable $\LaTeX$ screenshots, etc. MathJax is derived from LaTeX, but not exactly equal to it. (It's generally off topic on TeX Stack Exchange.)

# What's this do?

Basically, we can fancify our equations:

$$E = mc^2$$

We can wrap our equations in $...$ (for an inline equation: $c^2 = a^2 + b^2$), or if we want it to take up its own lines or be multiline we can use the $$...$$ delimiters instead.

This also lets us write equations with some significant visual complexity:

\begin{align} \vec{v} &= \begin{pmatrix} x \\ y \\ z \end{pmatrix} \\ \vert{\vec{v}}\vert &= \sqrt{x^2 + y^2 + z^2} \end{align}

The rule of thumb is that LaTeX makes extremely complex stuff simple, and extremely simple stuff complex. :)

A cheat sheet to the syntax is available here: MathJax basic tutorial and quick reference.

A Game Development-specific MathJax guide is being created here by the community: Game Development MathJax Cookbook

# The MathJax todo list

We have a list of posts we previously identified as being solid candidates for MathJax. We should do some editing to convert those to use mathematical formulae.

Please work on the ones you can confidently work on as necessary. Once you've edited a post, delete it from this list.

# What do we change or not change?

• If a post is displaying complex mathematical equations or notation that would benefit from being laid out in MathJax instead, convert those equations to MathJax.
• If a post is displaying minimal simple math (e.g. "a = 1 + 2") it's not really worth converting to MathJax.
• Do not replace pseudocode with Mathjax. Pseudocode is intended to be easily translated into actual computer code, sometimes even copy-pasted with minimal adjustments. Replacing it with MathJax would be a detriment to our site's utility.
• Do augment pseudocode with adjacent MathJax, when the mathematical notation would help people understand what's going on in the pseudocode. There are many equations that are simple to express as an equation, but complex and difficult to read when expressed as code. If it's not one of these cases (the mathematical equation is either more difficult to read than the code, or adds no net benefit in legibility) probably don't worry about this.

Sometimes the line between points 1 and 3 will be blurry. Use your judgement or request feedback from your peers in game development chat.

# For users whose edits need review

If you don't have the >2k edit privilege then when you submit an edit, please paste a link to the post in the Mathjax posts in review chat room that's been set up for this purpose. I will keep an eye on that room and update this post as necessary, others may as well.

# The "definite" list

These posts were identified as definitely beneficial from mathjax, because they were already using plaintext or images for equations or would otherwise clearly benefit from mathjax. Where these posts contain pseudocode, be mindful of whether it should be replaced with mathjax or augmented with it, per our guidance above.

# The "probably" list

These posts were identified as potentially strongly benefitting from mathjax, but may not be simple to convert: these were answers using psuedocode that may be more cleanly expressed as a mathematical equation, or would be better accompanied by an equation.

If you don't feel like a post on this list should be modified, please strike it out with <s> ... </s> rather than remove it.

• We should find a way to tell converted posts apart from the ones that are not, so that this can also become a way to track which ones are done and which are not (ex. make the ones that are done italic, or make the ones that are not done bold, I tried using ascii striket̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ but that just breaks the notation we use to make the post shorter.) – John Hamilton Dec 21 '17 at 7:18
• @John The "done" posts ought to get deleted off the list by the people completing them; if the edit needs review others can also keep an eye on it if it's posted to the linked chat room. – doppelgreener Dec 21 '17 at 9:00
• Might be worthwhile to check the list produced by this search about images hosted on Wikipedia. – Vaillancourt Aug 22 '18 at 1:05