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From: Tobias Burnus <burnus@gmx.de>
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Subject: Re: sqrt
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 17:39:37 +0200
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Hi Hans,

> I've been giving this \sqrt some thinking.
> 
> (1) I think \root ... \of ... is not that bad at all. It follows the
> flow of thinking.
It does. But {a \over b} does as well and we have also \fraction{a}{b}
defined in ConTeXt; moreover it is easier to remember \sqrt{x} and
\sqrt[3]{x} than
having \sqrt{x} and \root3\of x

> (2) \sqrt is a plain tex macro, which we cannot simply redefine.
Agreed.

> (3) Personally I always think of sqrt as being the root 2 of something,
> and therefore \sqrt[x]{} is (correct me if I'm wrong) a rather strange
> one.
{\root3\of{}} is but {\root3\of x} isn't that strange.
[I wrongly wrote \sqrt[n]{x} = \root x\of n in a privious mail, it's in
LaTeX of cause: \sqrt{x} = \sqrt{x} and \sqrt[n]{x} = {\root n\of x}

> On the other hand, I like the idea of a more verbose syntax. Maybe Taco
> has some ideas on this, especially when we look at math ML and the
> possibility to map tex on MML vise vera.
Agreed. But we should also look at AMSTeX/AMSLaTeX, but I'm sure Taco
will do so anyway.

Tobias