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From: geyer@galton.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: how to format -1.23e-4 ?
Message-ID: <1991Jun17.163146.19921@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 17 Jun 91 16:31:46 GMT
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (NewsMistress)
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 30


In article <1991Jun17.074816.9332@neon.Stanford.EDU>,
golding@neon.Stanford.EDU (Andy Golding) writes:

> I was wondering what is the preferred way of formatting
> numbers in exponential notation, e.g.,
> 
> 	-1.23e-4
> 
> I tried the following:
> 
> (a)  -1.23e-4      -->  the negative signs are wrong
> (b)  $-1.23e-4$    -->  bad spacing; looks like -1.23e minus 4
> (c)  --1.23e--4    -->  the dashes and spacing don't look right
> (d)  $-$1.23e$-$4  -->  not bad, but cumbersome to type

In article <3542@laura.UUCP> schwab@julien.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
(Andreas Schwab) writes:

> What about $-1.23\cdot 10^{-4}$ ?

Right or $-1.23 \times 10^{-4}$.  Either is what, before brain-damaged
stone age computers with monocase ascii, we used to call ``exponential''
or ``scientific'' notation.  You could also use {\tt -1.23e-4} if you
really want the appearance of computer output rather than mathematics.

Charles Geyer
Department of Statistics
University of Chicago
geyer@galton.uchicago.edu