# The Syntax of Chatting

Noob question. Over in the Mathematics.SE chat area, when the equations and terms posted are more complicated than, say, "sqrt(-1)" or " X^y," they are often in a shorthand, which seems like a derivative of LaTex / Tex.

For instance:

"Let \$c:(-\epsilon,\epsilon)\to M \$" [...]

which generates:

Let $c:(-\epsilon,\epsilon)\to M$ [...]

Is this just commonly accepted syntax based on years of experience, or is it MathJax ? (see: MathJax basic tutorial and quick reference and https://math.stackexchange.com/editing-help)

• Go to the mathematics chat room and search for "chatjax". @robjohn created some bookmarklets that can be accessed in order to start chatjax and render "mathjax" functionality within the chat itself – amWhy Sep 23 '16 at 19:20
• @amWhy - ah, so the rendering on chat is dependent on what's loaded in your browser? (Weird that the lib downloads here and on main and works, but not in chat)... probably the lib can't access the chat code that posts the messages. Appreciate the tips - was more than I was asking for :)) – Howard Pautz Sep 23 '16 at 19:24
• I hope it helps. I have access to it via a bookmark in my browser, to "start chatjax"...I can't remember if getting it amounted to simply adding the bookmark to your browser...but is quite handy to use in chat (and other math chat rooms too) – amWhy Sep 23 '16 at 19:27
• It does help - without the lib, most of it looks like ancient Babylonian :)) – Howard Pautz Sep 23 '16 at 19:29
• The way you phrased your post, it is a bit unclear what you are actually asking. But you can find more about bookmarklet that many people use in chat in this post. And it is also linked in the main chatroom rules. You should also notice that if you go to the main chatroom, you can see both links (bookmarlet and rules) in the room description. – Martin Sleziak Sep 23 '16 at 23:05
• @MartinSleziak I seem to have this notorious problem all over SE sites :)) I think my questions are crystal clear, but they make little sense to others. All I was asking was: "Is that \$foo \$ := $foo$ stuff on chat MathJax?" I guess I could have justed asked in chat, but I thought asking here might generate some useful links and suggestions, which it has done. Maybe I should just reduce the word count of the OP? – Howard Pautz Sep 23 '16 at 23:12
• Well, you could have asked in chat, you could have read room description or when asking on meta you could have searched a bit (for example, among questions tagged chat or questions tagged chat+mathjax) - in each of all these cases you would have found the required information. – Martin Sleziak Sep 23 '16 at 23:16
• actually I did search a lot, but only found things related to main and here. And it wasn't clear to me IF it was mathjax ... Yes, the \$LaTex\$ escaped my notice ... I've usually got my screen scrolled down to the bottom, current message. Should I delete my question here? – Howard Pautz Sep 23 '16 at 23:20
• However, the reason why I write that your question seems (at least to me) not entirely clear is this. When I read your question, you seem to be asking: "Are some people able to read math written in plain TeX/MathJax?" And, at least if the formulas are not complicated, certainly many people are able to do so. However, you probably intended to ask: "How can I read such expressions in chat?" In which case this is answered in the linked questions. – Martin Sleziak Sep 23 '16 at 23:20
• Actually, you're reading far more into my question! I merely wanted to know the binary Y/N answer to "Is that MathJax?" ... I can do my own homework for the syntax and figure realistically that if one understands the underlying math, the syntax should be $A_piece_of (cake)$. – Howard Pautz Sep 23 '16 at 23:23