From: helbig@asclothestro.multivax.de   
      
   In article , Hendrik van Hees   
    writes:   
      
   > Of course, after all these are conventions and often just a tradition.   
   > Why the physical fundamental constants are in italics and not upright   
   > is something I'm also puzzled about, but on the other hand, while   
   > mathematical constants are really constant and what they are, the   
   > values of the fundamental constants depend on the choice of the   
   > units.   
      
   I don't think that that's the reason.   
      
   > E.g., with the official change to the new SI the magnetic   
   > field constant became a derived quantity with an error, while before   
   > it was defined as an exact quantity by the old definition of the   
   > Ampere (two infinite straight wires...).   
      
   As you say, in the old system it was just what it was, an exact value.   
      
   One reason might be that roman (upright) latin letters are used for   
   units.  So the unit tesla is upright T but italic T is temperature, say.   
      
   > Now it's to be measured   
   > based on the fixed value of the elementary charge and the definition   
   > of the second in terms of the Cesium hyperfine splitting frequency.   
      
   Like the meter: it used to be 1/40,000,000 of the circumference of the   
   Earth, but now the actual size of the Earth has to be measured.   
   Similarly, at one time a liter of water weighed exactly 1 kilogram.   
      
   > Last but not least, not all journals follow these rules. Sometimes   
   > they even don't like to set the differential d upright.   
      
   Some journals just have no style.  One thing which I find rather strange   
   is the lack of a final full stop after a caption in some journals.  Now   
   if the caption is just a phrase or a word and not a full sentence, then   
   that makes sense.  But when it is a paragraph consisting of several   
   sentences and there is no full stop after the last one, that is just   
   strange.   
      
   > If you use Word, it's impossible to get a good microtypography   
   > anyway.  There you can only hope that the journal transforms it   
   > into a readable text ;-)).   
      
   I always use LaTeX myself (or, for really simple things, just a text   
   file).  Some journals which accept or even require submissions in LaTeX   
   convert it to something else when setting the final version.  Some   
   journals even use WORD.  (By the way, apparently new versions of WORD   
   can open PDF files and the result is a relatively good approximation of   
   what the PDF file looks like.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)