arcsin or sin^{-1}

[Burcin Erocal]

Hi,

With the switch to pynac, the way we typeset arcsin and friends changed.

sage: version()
'Sage Version 4.0.1, Release Date: 2009-06-06'
sage: latex(arcsin(x))
\arcsin\left(x\right)

as opposed to:

sage: version()
'Sage Version 3.4.2, Release Date: 2009-05-05'
sage: latex(arcsin(x))
\sin^{-1} \left( x \right)

The new convention we got from GiNaC is also what Maple follows:

> latex(arcsin(x));
\arcsin \left( x \right)

However, MMA goes with the previous method:

In[1]:= TeXForm[ArcSin[x]]

Out[1]//TeXForm= \sin ^{-1}(x)

I think the previous convention is confusing, since it's not clear if
this is the inverse function, or a power. I.e., it's common to use
sin^2(x) to denote (sin(x))^2.

I thought we should vote before I make this change the new standard,
as a part of #6286.

My vote is for arcsin.

Cheers,
Burcin

[Tim Lahey]

+1

It's an easy find/replace if someone wants to use \sin^{-1} instead. I
prefer the \arcsin since it's unambiguous compared to \sin^{-1}.

Cheers,

Tim.

---
Tim Lahey
PhD Candidate, Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo
http://www.linkedin.com/in/timlahey

[John Cremona]

2009/6/14 Tim Lahey <tim....@gmail.com>:

+1

John

[Nick Alexander]

>>> My vote is for arcsin.
>>>
>>
>> +1
>
> +1

+1

Nick

[Craig Citro]

+1

[William Stein]

+1 (sorry, couldn't resist).

And I have no idea why we used sin^(-1)(x) before. Not even
Maxima does that by default:

(%i5) asin(sin(x));
(%o5) x
(%i6) tex(asin(x));
$$\arcsin x$$