Experiences typesetting mathematical physics

Abstract

Twenty years ago, the author was just about to start his university studies in math and physics. A year or so later, he not only discovered a fascinating program called TEX, but he also got involved in a project of typesetting a series of lecture notes which eventually became book manuscripts for a complete course in theoretical physics. In the end, he spent about seven years working on typing, editing, revising, and formatting more than 2500 book pages containing a large amount of math. While there are many experiences from such a project one could talk about, ranging from issues of project management to document design and layout, this talk will focus on two specific topics: adapting LATEX to deal with the specific requirements of mathematical notation in physics and fine-tuning the appearance of math formulas.