Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations cowski on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Style Guide for Assigning Subscripts in Formulas 1

Status
Not open for further replies.

DM2

Mechanical
Oct 20, 2007
144
There seems to be an unwritten rule that when assigning subscript for mathematical symbols, the Noun is capitalized and the prenoun is subscript. For example: Potential Energy is often written Ep, rather than Pe.

I've not seen this written in any "Style Manuals" that I can find. Is my understanding correct and does anyone know of a reference, or possible style manual for this?

Regards,
DM

"Real world Knowledge isn't dropped from a parachute in the sky but rather acquired in tiny increments from a variety of sources including panic and curiosity."
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Forget the subscript for a moment; what would you write as the symbol for energy? Would it not be a capitalized E? And EP is not MATH, it's PHYSICS. And in physics books, I've also seen potential energy as PE and kinetic as KE. Given that KE and PE are both energies, would it really make sense to have PE and KE, given that E is the symbol for energy, and that there is no physical meaning to K and P by themselves?

TTFN
faq731-376
7ofakss

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor