[Phys-L] Re: unfamiliar notation

[John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

On 06/14/05 14:32, Spagna Jr., George wrote:
> I just finished reading a strange little paper in which the author used
> the lower case Greek "eta" where I would have used "h-bar." In fact, I
> only figured out what the author meant when the same notation was used
> in a more familiar context, i.e. Schroedinger's equation, which I found
> particularly annoying.
>
> My question for the list is, is this standard notation somewhere?  I
> have never seen it before.

I've never seen it.

   a) Authors should define their notation and terminology
    (unless it is reeeeally standard, and maybe even then).

   b) Without detracting from item (a), if you're talking
    about a web document, I can kinda understand why the
    author would use a nonstandard symbol.  Most browsers
    can't (or won't) display a nice hbar.  The symbol is
    not a standard HTML entity.  It exists as a unicode
    entity, but most browser/OS combinations won't render
    it properly.  To test your browser go to
       http://www.av8n.com/computer/utf/font-chart.html
    and search for "planck".

   c) The best workaround I know of is to use h'  (h prime)
    to represent hbar in web documents.  If anybody knows of
    something better, please speak up.
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