[texhax] Italic correction

[Michael Barr]

Mea culpa. It seems that the difference I saw disappeared at a higher 
magnification in yap.  I still see it at the standard magnification, nor 
can I explain why \/ changes it, but it does.  It does remain that d^3 
looks awful.  Now bb has raised the question of whether the d ought to be 
in roman, not mit.  The face operator d is historically related (by the 
Stokes theorem) to the differential d.

But as a matter of practice, it seems to me that we mathematicians have 
settled on a different convention: multi-character identifiers are in 
roman and single character identifiers are in mit.  This is very useful as 
it means that you can instantly tell when a multi-character string is a 
unit.  And much more important than whether something is a constant or 
variable, a distinction that is not clearcut.  For example, it is 
perfectly legitimate to say that \pi = 4 in \ell^1.

Michael


-- 
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in
moral philosophy--the search for a superior moral justification
for selfishness.  --J.K. Galbraith