What’s Wrong With These Equations?

The 4^th edition of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology is full of equations: thousands of them. Each one must fit into the text in a way to make the book easy to read. How?

N. David Mermin wrote a fascinating essay that appeared in the October 1989 issue of Physics Today titled “What’s Wrong With These Equations?” You can find it online at www.cvpr.org/doc/mermin.pdf. It begins

A major impediment to writing physics gracefully comes from the need to embed in the prose many large pieces of raw mathematics. Nothing in freshman composition courses prepares us for the literary problems raised by the use of displayed equations.

Mermin then presents three rules “that ought to govern the marriage of equations to readable prose”

• Rule 1 (Fisher’s rule): Number all displayed equations.


• Rule 2 (Good Samaritan rule): When referring to an equation identify it by a phrase as well as a number.


• Rule 3 (Math is Prose rule): End a displayed equation with a punctuation mark.

In Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, Russ Hobbie and I violate Fisher’s rule: some of our displayed equations are not numbered. All I can say is, there are lots of equations in our book, and revising it to obey Fisher’s rule would require more effort than we are willing to expend.

I know you are wondering how an essay about punctuating and numbering equations could possibly be interesting, but Mermin makes the subject entertaining. And if you ever find yourself writing an article that contains equations, obeying his three rules will make the article easier to read.

Boojums All the Way Through,
by N. David Mermin.

Many physicists know Mermin for his renowned textbook Solid State Physics with Neil Ashcroft. His series of “Reference Frame” essays in Physics Today are all delightful, particularly the ones with Professor Mozart. Several Reference Frame essays are reprinted in his book Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age. The title essay describes Mermin’s quest to establish the whimsical word “Boojum” as a scientific term for a phenomenon in superfluidity. If you want to learn to write physics well, read Mermin.