Fonts for Symbols in Scientific Text

In many fields—especially math, physics, and chemistry—variables, constants, and other symbols are frequently used, and sometimes it’s difficult to know what font to use: roman (regular text), italics, bold, or bold italics…

For example, for the mass of an electron, m_e = 9.109×10⁻³¹ kg, m is written in italics because it’s a physical quantity, e is written in roman type because it’s a descriptor, and kg is written in roman type because it’s an SI unit.

There are many rules to remember, so we wanted to share with you a useful reference sheet, Typefaces for Symbols in Scientific Manuscripts, from the U.S. National Institute of Standards.

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/pdf/typefaces.pdf

We hope this is helpful to you in preparing your next manuscript!

Posted on August 31, 2011