Talk:Fibonacci sequence: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:27, 15 July 2025

Revision as of 17:43, 15 July 2025

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:There's another example on the same page with centered dots (in [[Fibonacci sequence#Mathematics|§ Applications » Mathematics]]). My impression is that the usual practice in mathematical typesetting nowadays follows "The dots should appear at the baseline when between commas, and in the center of the line when between other operators" (found [https://read.seas.harvard.edu/~kohler/latex.html here] from a quick web search). –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 15:19, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

::Thank you for the quick response. I still like the rule I was taught better, but it seems there are alternatives out there, {{nobreak|so {{tmath|\cdots}} whatever. {{smiley}}}} Thanks —[[User:Quantling|<span class="texhtml"><i>Q</i></span>uantling]]&nbsp;([[User talk:Quantling|talk]]&nbsp;&#124;&nbsp;[[Special:Contributions/Quantling|contribs]]) 16:27, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

:::I think pre-Latex, most ellipses only had one type, so historical practice was to generally just use "ldots". But using centered dots for arbitrary operators seems to be the general best practice in recent times for mathematical writing in English. For example, the [https://epubs.siam.org/pb-assets/files/SIAM_STYLE_GUIDE_2019.pdf SIAM style guide] (p. 65) says: "Line dots (ldots) are used between variables with other punctuation. Centered dots (cdots) are used between operators." Wiley's mathematical typesetting advice (I won't link it as it's a word doc, lol) says "In elided sums or elided relations, the ellipsis points should be vertically centered between the operation or relation signs". Feel free to search for other style guides / typesetting guides if you want.

:::It would probably be even better to use semantically meaningful \dotsc ({{tmath|\dotsc}}) for commas, \dotsb ({{tmath|\dotsb}}) for binary operations, \dotsm ({{tmath|\dotsm}}) for multiplication, \dotsi ({{tmath|\dotsi}}) for integrals, or \dotso ({{tmath|\dotso}}) for others. In theory \dots is supposed to figure out which one to use from the context, but the heuristic isn't super sophisticated and it often gets it wrong as in this case. When it goes wrong I usually just write \ldots or \cdots. –[[user:jacobolus|jacobolus]] [[user_talk:jacobolus|(t)]] 17:43, 15 July 2025 (UTC)