Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by amelius 3569 days ago
> Writing a 100 page thesis is not hard work either

Except if you stubbornly decide to fully understand LaTeX in the process.

1 comments

Dear lord, I've started writing all of my mathematics homework in LaTeX, it's not even remotely reasonable.

Though interestingly, having to be more deliberate in my operations do make me have a much more rigorous understanding of what I'm doing.

> it's not even remotely reasonable.

What is more scary: I exclusively write LaTeX equations in emails, raw to my colleagues. We have all been working with it for so long it is a native language.

Math does funny stuff to your brain.

    This is your brain 

    \this{is your brain on Math}
As a less poetic example, playing Dwarf Fortress for prolonged periods of time reportedly has similar effects. The ASCII fades, and mental images take its place. It's freaky when decoding slips into the hardware layer.
Most of my colleagues did this too. I know I've done it with my supervisor. It's just easier when you're trying to write out something complex and everyone who you're writing to knows how to read it without difficulty.
I once (only once) live-typed notes from my Quantum Field Theory 2 class in LaTeX. It was on non-Abelian gauge theory IIRC. We had a German professor who was really fast too, and there's so many co(ntra)variant indices it's not even funny.

It took quite some preparation and a shitload of custom \newcommand's, but it was doable, although painful.

Impressive feat. And I'd buy you a shot of whiskey if I ever met you in person for attempting said feat.
Now try to go back to MS Word and typeset equations. You will miss LaTeX.