LaTex et l'ozone
If you'll pardon my French (and in this modern world I have to add my apologies to all of France for reprising that slight). Nothing to do with latex rubber that's destroyed by ozone, either....
Despite its title, this post isn’t entirely frivolous, though the holiday mood is still upon us …
Way back in 1986 I was the first at Oxford’s Department of Atmospheric Physics to submit a doctoral thesis formatted using Tex, the forerunner of the more user-friendly LaTex typesetting program. My friend and compatriot there, Dave Pairman, was the trail-blazer; but his thesis (a bit unfairly) made it into print a couple weeks after mine.
LaTex definitely beautifies and clarifies scientific and mathematical communications. The resulting ‘look’ is compellingly authoritative. A decidedly useful attribute for any aspiring thesis writer.
Now, nearly 40 years later, it’s a big hooray for Substack! For some time I’d been asking for the ability to include subscripts and superscripts. They’ve finally responded, if a little geekily. LaTex is at last included as an editing option. I can now include proper subscripts in chemical formulas
I can even use Greek characters too (we love those),
As well as symbols for Integration and Summation (see below) and a multitude of other gems.
I’m still looking for a few other less glamorous but essential functions, like line-feed, and others. I look forward to eventually being able to reproduce mathematical LaTex beauties - complete with line feeds - like the one below for Substack readers.
It’s a pity the paper I clipped that formula from isn’t as good as the typesetting. The paper is a continuation on a theme I mentioned earlier, where the author, Qing-Bin Lu, claims to be the only one who understands the real cause of ozone depletion, and thinks the rest of the world’s scientists have got it all wrong. He reckons that chlorine is NOT the culprit after all (and neither - I might add - is latex rubber, in fact apparently quite the opposite 😊).
There’s already been some robust discussion in the literature about Lu’s claims
Here’s the timeline the links - with thanks to my colleague, Germar Bernhard for putting them together.
Original paper by Lu: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0094629
Rebuttal by Chipperfield: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0121723
Response by Lu: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0129344
Latest paper by Lu: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.09712
No doubt the debate will continue …
The correspondence is a good example of the scientific process at work. I’m not going to solve the dispute here, but in the fullness of time the truth will be out. I know what side I’m backing …
P.S. Thanks for your helpful tips on coffee cups after my last post, ranging from using mugs (thanks Keith), to purchasing (from Camille) some of her home crafted handle-less cups. But what about spillage?