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This mostly scientific site will certainly contain a lot of questions and answers with mathematical formulae. Can we have MathJax enabled here like on similar Signal Processing?

When enabled this will render as a formula:

$$\sum_{i=0}^n i^2 = \frac{(n^2+n)(2n+1)}{6}$$

Here is the code to create the formula:

$$\sum_{i=0}^n i^2 = \frac{(n^2+n)(2n+1)}{6}$$

This will be rendered as follows:

enter image description here

See MathJax basic tutorial and quick reference.

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    $\begingroup$ I can see your MathJax perfectly fine i.sstatic.net/Gb7H1.png :p $\endgroup$
    – TheSimpliFire
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 12:16
  • $\begingroup$ @TheSimpliFire maybe it was enabled recently? I do not see it yet. Probably it needs time to pass through caches. $\endgroup$
    – pabouk - Ukraine stay strong
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 13:19
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    $\begingroup$ I do not see the equation rendered as in @thesimplifire png $\endgroup$
    – selene
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 15:04
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    $\begingroup$ @selene It turns out I had enabled math.ucla.edu/~robjohn/math/mathjax.html $\endgroup$
    – TheSimpliFire
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 15:58
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    $\begingroup$ Currently facing the same problem. Unable to see the latex style equation formatting. Stuff just appears as is between the $$. $\endgroup$
    – Thejasvi
    Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 8:59
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    $\begingroup$ could we have a feedback from the SE staff on this feature request please? @V2Blast $\endgroup$
    – Noil
    Commented Jul 30, 2022 at 14:00
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    $\begingroup$ @JNat or someone else from SE - how do we get this enabled? $\endgroup$
    – Carly Batist Mod
    Commented Oct 15, 2022 at 16:45
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    $\begingroup$ For future reference, moderators (or staff) can add the [status-review] tag to the question (as you have now) to escalate it for staff attention, per this process described on MSE: What posts should be escalated to staff using [status-review], and how do I escalate them? $\endgroup$
    – V2Blast Staff
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 16:38

3 Answers 3

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This seems to be an intentional choice, apparently due to the computational load of running such formatters? (thread on all MathJax supported SEs)

On second thoughts, I'm not that sure if the BioAc SE will ever need as much math notation after all - even though it would be nice oc. Some of the solutions to overcome the lack of math notation are in this QA thread: LaTeX on Stack Overflow?

Change of mind EDIT:

On 'third thought' enabling math formatting would actually be awesome. As pointed out by some of you, even simple formulas are a pain to read without notation, and it seems like I'd overlooked the frequency with which we use them!!

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  • $\begingroup$ "also not seen on other SEs", There are sites on the SE network using MathJax. $\endgroup$
    – Henry WH Hack v3.0
    Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 13:36
  • $\begingroup$ True, there are other SEs with math notation enabled. Seems that the default is to disable the feature - current edit clarifies that. $\endgroup$
    – Thejasvi
    Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 13:40
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, it is intentional that it is disabled by default. From the page: MathJax increases page load times drastically, so it's only supported on sites that have demonstrated a serious need for it. --- To explain it: the main concern is load time in the web browser which is increased because of loading an running an additional JavaScript code. The answer on There is ... no reason why ... MathJax shouldn't be enabled ... shows increase of load time about 20 % on the first visit on the site. Subsequent visits will be faster. $\endgroup$
    – pabouk - Ukraine stay strong
    Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 14:23
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    $\begingroup$ I would rather guess that none of the Stack Exchange staff did not notice this request yet. I am guessing no-one of this community members is in contact with the Stack Exchange staff? --- I would guess that here we can expect similar amount of mathematics as on these SE sites which already have MathJax enabled: Bioinformatics, Biology, Signal Processing. $\endgroup$
    – pabouk - Ukraine stay strong
    Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 14:35
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    $\begingroup$ There is no reason why it should not be enabled. For this site to be useful, we need to be able to share equations. There is no way you can do quantitative Bioacoustics without equations and it is cumbersome and unnecessary to be forced to explain everything without proper math notation. $\endgroup$
    – user18
    Commented Jun 26, 2022 at 8:53
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    $\begingroup$ I would also vote to have equations (latex style) be enabled. If a picture says 1000 words, an equation says 1000 pictures $\endgroup$
    – WMXZ
    Commented Jun 27, 2022 at 17:39
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    $\begingroup$ @pabouk-Ukrainestaystrong None of the original organizers, that I know of, are in contact with the SE staff but I'll reach out to Shannon R (the original proposer) and see if she is. Otherwise, I agree that it might take a little time for the SE staff to get these sorts of changes implemented, but keep the suggestions and discussion happening here on the Meta site! $\endgroup$
    – selene
    Commented Jun 27, 2022 at 21:28
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    $\begingroup$ I am not sure of exactly how one should express their support to this feature being implemented apart from upvoting this post (which of course I did). I have been a member of other SE pages that make use of MathJax (such as Physics and Signal Processing) and it is an integral part of many posts (as well as edits that many - including me - people propose on posts for readability reasons). I believe this should be enabled to each and every SE pages that have to do with any kind of scientific field/topic (such as this one). $\endgroup$
    – ZaellixA
    Commented Oct 9, 2022 at 16:36
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    $\begingroup$ @ZaellixA: Moderators (or staff) can add the [status-review] tag to the question (as they have now) to escalate it for staff attention, per this process described on MSE: What posts should be escalated to staff using [status-review], and how do I escalate them? That'll create an internal ticket for the CMs, and we can triage the issue to the relevant CM subteam or other team. $\endgroup$
    – V2Blast Staff
    Commented Oct 17, 2022 at 16:35
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MathJax is now enabled on both the main Bioacoustics site and this meta site.

(If you encounter any issues with using MathJax on the site, please post them as a new question on this meta site.)

I also want to point out that enabling MathJax on the site also adds a "LaTeX" section to the Editing Help page for the site. At the end of that section, you'll see the following link:

Learn more: MathJax help.

By default, this "MathJax help" link points to the URL https://legacy-www.math.harvard.edu/texman/ – but as this MSE post points out, this link can be customized per-site to point to a different URL:

Any site with MathJax enabled can request that a different guide be used for this purpose. Ideally, they'll write one specific to the needs of their community, but if they want to link to Mathematics.SE's guide instead, that's fine too - as long as they don't mind it being specific to Math's needs in some ways (and, obviously, controlled by folks with editing rights on Math's meta).

If this community wants this "MathJax help" link to be customized to point to a different URL, please start a new discussion on this meta site about what URL the link should point to (like this discussion on Cross Validated's Meta). Then, if the community comes to a consensus, the moderators can add the tag to escalate the request for staff attention.

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Per suggestion from @JNat, we have flagged this with the "status-review" tag, which escalates the post and alerts SE staff who will then act on it.
More info on that process here.

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