# problem with mathjax spacing in comments

In the last few months, I have noticed the following anomaly in the way that mathjax is being rendered in comments:

Currently $$\ a\backslash, b\$$ seems to be rendered as a,b.
What is desired is instead, an (additional) space inserted between a and b. That is, no comma is desired to be rendered.

If I remember correctly, as recently as one year ago,
$$\ a\backslash, b\$$ would have been rendered as desired.

I have also noticed the same anomaly with respect to
$$\ a\backslash; b\$$

I haven't checked whether these anomalies also apply to mathjax rendering of inline math in answers.

Have others noticed these recent anomalies, or am I doing something wrong? If it is not a mistake on my part, is there a new way to force mathjax to insert additional spaces, when desired?

• In Latex and Mathjax, spaces can be added with a tilde ~. a~b renders as $a~b$. – user400188 Aug 21 at 2:54
• @user400188 nice comment, thanks. – user2661923 Aug 21 at 2:57
• Test: $a\,b$ gives $a\,b$, $a\;b$ gives $a\;b$. (I see a space between a and b in the MathJax formulas, rather than comma/semicolon.) – Martin Sleziak Aug 21 at 6:05
• @MartinSleziak Very interesting comment. I don't understand this; it's hard for me to believe that I was imagining this. However, given your comment, I must have somehow been mistaken. – user2661923 Aug 21 at 6:09
• @MartinSleziak I just updated one of my mathSE queries with an Addendum. While editing, I decided to (again) attempt using \, or \; rather than ~. Again, assuming that I did nothing wrong, the problem persists. Again, I have no explanation for this. – user2661923 Aug 21 at 13:49
• Please link to one of your Comments where this should be visible. Also, it may be relevant what your MathJax settings are (right click submenu on $\LaTeX$ expression). – hardmath Aug 21 at 15:35
• @hardmath experimenting now: $a\,b$ and $a\;b$. In this comment the \, and \; settings are working correctly. I am going to check my mathjax settings per your suggestion in this comment and on my mathSE page and report the findings as an additional comment. In the meantime, thanks for the investigative help. If the problem persists, I will employ your suggestion of linking to a mathSE comment where the problem can be observed. – user2661923 Aug 21 at 15:39
• Yes, these display properly for me. I use HTML-CSS renderer here on Meta (Chromium browser, Fedora 31 OS). I have slightly different Math Settings on the main site. You might check to see if you also do. – hardmath Aug 21 at 15:43
• I have double checked everything: (1) My mathjax rendering is identical to yours in both my mathSE and meta-mathSE. I just experimented with comments in mathSE and a mathSE Sandbox answer. In both cases, the rendering was correct - I am unable to reproduce the problem. Because of this, I am going to flag this query and request that a moderator close but preserve this query. If/when the problem re-surfaces, I will start a new meta-mathSE query, link to this one for background, and provide a link to the currently troublesome mathSE rendering. Everyone, thanks for the help. – user2661923 Aug 21 at 16:01