External links page of RWD Nickalls

LaTeX and `plain' TeX are the core components of the widely used open-source (free) typesetting system, which is freely available for all computer platforms (Linux/Unix, Microsoft, MacOS, and others). Roughly speaking, `plain' TeX is the original system of low-level code, while LaTeX is a comprehensive system of macro-packages which greatly facilitates the use of TeX code and hence makes the process of typesetting much more straight forward.

Over the years LaTeX and `plain' TeX have been greatly extended by an extremely active world-wide open-source community, into the world's leading typesetting system for getting maths, poems, plays, graphics, music, ... onto paper, PS, PDF, HTML, XML etc. Note that nowadays, owing to the various extensions which have been developed, the name `TeX' is now used generically as a collective term denoting the following wide range of related and free high-quality typesetting software tools & components, for example: TeX, LaTeX, Metafont, Metapost, Babel, BibTeX, ConTeXt, PSTricks, AMSTeX, PDFTeX, LuaTeX, XeTeX, and more, all of which come with any standard TeX installation (see details of the DVD below). All the TeX-related software is freely available from web archives and on DVD (see installation below).

There is an active TeX Users Group in most countries, and several national and international TeX conferences are held each year (see the TUG homepage for conference information). Visit the Latex-Project website for information regarding on-going software development.

Usage: Once you have a working TeX system installed on your computer (see details of the DVD below), documents are then typeset by first creating a file (the tex file) containing tex commands and of course words, diagrams, pictures etc. You then use one of the TeX engines (either `plain' TeX itself, or more usually either LaTeX, pdfLaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX) to generate the output file (say, a PDF file) which can then be viewed in the usual way. Other such documents, eg HTML, XML etc are generated in a similar fashion using the appropriate `TeX' engine.

Although pdfLaTeX is currently the TeX engine used by most people, new engines are being developed and upgraded. For example, the relatively recent XeTeX and XeLaTeX engines extend pdfLaTeX by giving native support to Unicode, and facilitate the easy use of modern font formats (eg, True Type and Open Type). LuaTeX, which is currently at a fairly early stage of development, further extends flexibility by incorporating the programming language Lua.

History: TeX (now known as `plain' TeX) was initially developed in 1978 by the Stanford professor of computing Donald Knuth (1938--). LaTeX, the associated system of TeX macro packages, was developed in 1985 by Leslie Lamport (1941--). Both of these computer scientists are detailed in the book Out of their minds--the lives and discoveries of 15 great computer scientists by DE Shasha and CA Lazere (1995) [pub: Copernicus, Springer-Verlag]. Note that one of the reasons the TeX system has been so successful lies in the fact that it is a programming language in its own right---a typesetting language.

Some interesting historical overviews are as follows:
--- A brief history of TeX. In: Taylor P (1996) Computer typesetting or electronic publishing? New trends in scientific publishing.
--- Reutenauer A (2008) A brief history of TeX: II
--- Doob M (1990). TeX and the single CPU: I (Notices Amer. Math. Soc., vol 37; p 270--273)
--- Doob M (1991). TeX and the single CPU: II (Notices Amer. Math. Soc., vol 38; p 1243--1246)
Some further historical details can be found in the Wikipedia articles on TeX, and LaTeX.

Introductory information: Before deciding whether to obtain a copy of the latest installation DVD (known as the TeX Collection ---see details on the DVD below), those curious about the TeX system may wish to read some general articles, for example, LaTeX--an introduction (by Unwalla 2006), or What is TeX?, or Starting out with TeX, or The levels of TeX, or Begining LaTeX (by Peter Flynn 2005).
Some relevant `overview' TeX articles have appeared in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, as follows:
--- Downes M (Mar 2002) TeX and LaTeX2e
--- Hefferson J and Berry K (Mar 2009) The TeX family in 2008 [6.9MB]
--- Gratzer G (Jan 2009) Whats new in LaTeX? I: Breaking free
--- Gratzer G (May 2009) Whats new in LaTeX? II: TeX implementations, evolution or revolution
--- Gratzer G (Sep 2009) Whats new in LaTeX? III: Formatting references

Installation DVD: Contains complete implementations of TeX and associated systems for Linux/Unix (TeXLive), MS Windows (proTeXt), and MacOS (MacTex), as well as a copy of the extensive CTAN archive of TeX software. Although all of the TeX systems are freely available for download, they are large systems (1-2GB) and are most conveniently installed from this annual DVD (known as the TeX Collection). The latest version of the TeX Collection DVD (November 2009) is available from the TUG Store for about US$50. Alternatively, it is probably slightly cheaper to join your local TeX Users Group, as the annual DVD is a free membership benefit. For example, membership of the UK TeX Users Group is only about £10.

Documentation: A good list of TeX-related documentation is at TeX resources on the web, and also at the Latex-Project website for guides and books on TeX. Of course the TeX Users Group homepage and the FAQ and the TeX Catalogue and LaTeX reference manual are also good places to browse.
There are also some very useful Wikipedia and Wikibook entries:
--- Wikipedia: general info TeX | LaTeX.
--- Wikibook: in depth coverage TeX | LaTeX |

TeX journals: The TeX User's Group publishes two English language journals, namely, TUGboat (contents) and PracTeX both of which are freely available on the web.

Links:

TeX Users Group homepage TUG

UK TeX Users Group homepage ukTUG

XeTeX on the WEB

XeTeX for Linux

XeTeX Companion (Goossens M; January 2010) [112 pages,3MB]

The Unicode Standard, version 5

TEXonWEB An experimental interactive facility for testing/writing/storing TeX/LaTeX code on the web

MathTran WIKI | MathTran (home) ---TeX-based online translation of mathematical content (Open University)

ukTUG LaTeX thesis templates

Asymptote a powerful vector graphics system for use with LaTeX

SVGLaTeX SVG graphics

The History of Computer Programming Languages

Lorem Ipsum `dummy text' for testing typesetting

Perl

Perl websites perl.org | Perlmonks | CPAN archive

Natural Docs an OS Perl program-documentation system

Math::Polynomial::Solve a Perl module for solving polynomials written by John Gamble

GNUplot

GNUplot websites homepage | FAQ | demo pages

WWW links

w3schools (homepage) | TAG page

EUKhost web-hosting

Free FTP servers for MS-Windows | CoreFTP

W3C markup validation service (for checking www pages)

Google addurl utility

(EC's book) HTML, XHTML CSS

free Handheld phone HTML-browser simulators Opera | Openwave | Nokia

Pulfrich effect

The Pulfrich effect (discovered by the physicist Carl Pulfrich 1858-1927) is a most unusual visual phenomenon with interesting mathematical, vision physiology, and clinical applications, which is occasionally exploited for making 3D television programs (a memorable Dr Who episode was made this way--see New Scientist article (1993); 13 November, p.23---as well as an episode of `3rd rock from the sun'). The Pulfrich website is the main location for all things Pulfrich. The 1922 paper in which he describes the Pulfrich-effect is as follows:

Pulfrich C (1922).
Die Stereoskopie im Dienste der isochromen und heterochromen Photometrie.
Naturwissenschaften; vol 10, pp 553--564.

Maths

Am Math Soc (AMS) Notices | Feature column (search) | Bulletin | Maths moments | Maths in the media

Jan Wassenaar's 2dcurves website

Earliest known uses of some words in mathematics Jeff Miller's website

Digital Maths Library (DML)

Digital Library of the Historical Maths Book Collection (Cornell Univ)

Maths Network

Euclid Project (OS mathematics and statistics resource)

American Mathematical Monthly | Mathematical Gazette | PLUS (online maths journal)

JSTOR science archive | arXiv e-Print archive | arXiv frontend

Galois groups (mathpages website).

Euler Wikipedia | EulerProject: problems for solution | Euler Society Newsletter

Origami

During the last 30 years or so the Japanese art of paper folding, known as Origami, has increasingly been attracting the attention of mathematicians and engineers, who have now formalised origami mathematically by establishing the so-called seven Huzita axioms of folding (see Lang's website). For example, using origami one can solve equations, trisect angles, generate lengths representing rational and irrational numbers (see Lang 2003), and create representations of fractal systems (Dacorogna 2010). Indeed, a forthcoming space telescope is being designed with origami principles in mind (see Dacorogna 2010).

--- RJ Lang origami website (»science»Huzita)
--- Lang RJ (2003) Origami and geometric constructions [55 pages; 1.8MB]
--- Dacorogna B etal (May 2010) Origami and partial differential equations [9 pages; 17.1MB]
--- Haga K (2009): Origamics: mathematical explorations through paper folding. (World Scientific, Singapore)
--- Mathematical imagery (an AMS website which includes origami)

Some early papers on polynomials

EW von Tschirnhaus' 1683 paper
A method for removing all intermediate terms from a given equation (translated by RF Green, 2003)
---See also Polynomial transformations of Tschirenhaus, Bring and Jerrard (Adamchik VA and Jeffrey DJ, 2003).
L Euler's 1733 quartic paper (E030)
A conjecture on the forms of the roots of equations (translated by Jordan Bell, 2008)
--- original (Latin): De formis radicum aequationum cujusque ordinis conjectatio
(Euler L (1733). Commentarii academiae scientiarum imperialis Petropolitianae; vol 6 (pub. 1738), pp. 216-231 = Opera Omnia, Series~1 (Pure mathematics), vol 6 (Theory of equations), pp. 1-19.)
Ball RS (1866)
Note on the algebraical solution of biquadratic equations. [PDF, 7.9MB]
Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, volume 7 (1866) pp. 6-9, 358-369.

William Freeman Daniell (1817-1865)

WF Daniell was an English army surgeon and botanist. He was instrumental in bringing Calabar beans from West Africa to Edinburgh pharmacologists who then discovered their physostigmine content. Edinburgh physicians then went on to show that physostigmine was the first anticholinergic. Daniell collected plant specimens in Africa, Jamaica, China, and several plants have been named after him. His specimens are housed in the Natural History Museum herbarium and also in the herbarium at Kew Gardens (London). See also online biography

Useful botanical resources are
--- The Oregon State University Botanical Department homepage
--- Natural History Museum (BM) London Botany Department homepage
--- ALUKA resource for African plants

Plants associated with WF Daniell
--- Tetradium daniellii (syn: Evodia daniellii, Korean evodia)

RWD Nickalls