This is a test post, with no real content.

In my post about coin flips (“No, the Patriots aren’t magically controlling coin tosses“), I used a truly silly workaround (MS Equation Editor –> pdf –> jpeg) to insert some math in the post, resulting in this:

 

I’ve installed the WordPress plugin MathTex so that I hopefully don’t have to do this in the future; this is a test drive. Here’s the same expression in MathTex:

Meh. Okay, but a couple of problems: the editor barfed when the expression got longer than one line, so I had to enter the two lines as two separate expressions. Also, once an expression is inserted in the post, there seems to be no way to edit it (though it does save a history, so you can delete and re-insert an edited expression without retyping the whole thing). Ooh, CodeCogs Equation Converter:

 

Also a bit clunky: it creates a .gif of your equation, which you can download and insert into your post. Also, what is that indentation on the first line about? [Just looked at the preview: oh man, is that ugly!]

I guess I like MathTex better; if nothing else, it puts the LaTex version of your equation in the html code, so a reader could copy and paste it if they wanted. If someone knows a better solution, I’d love to hear it.