Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols is a

Unicode block A Unicode block is one of several contiguous ranges of numeric character codes (code points) of the Unicode character set that are defined by the Unicode Consortium for administrative and documentation purposes. Typically, proposals such as the ad ...

comprising styled forms of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

letters and decimal digits that enable mathematicians to denote different notions with different letter styles. The letters in various fonts often have specific, fixed meanings in particular areas of mathematics. By providing uniformity over numerous mathematical articles and books, these conventions help to read mathematical formulas.

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

now includes many such symbols (in the range U+1D400–U+1D7FF). The rationale behind this is that it enables design and usage of special mathematical characters (

fonts In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mode ...

) that include all necessary properties to differentiate from other alphanumerics, e.g. in mathematics an ''italic'' "𝐴" can have a different meaning from a ''roman'' letter "A". Unicode originally included a limited set of such letter forms in its

Letterlike Symbols Letterlike Symbols is a Unicode block containing 80 characters which are constructed mainly from the glyphs of one or more letters. In addition to this block, Unicode includes full styled mathematical alphabets, although Unicode does not expli ...

block before completing the set of Latin and Greek letter forms in this block beginning in version 3.1. Unicode expressly recommends that these characters not be used in general text as a substitute for presentational markup; the letters are specifically designed to be semantically different from each other. Unicode does include a set of normal serif letters in the set. Still they have found some usage on

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

, for example by people who want a stylized user name, and in

email spam Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email (spamming). The name comes from a Monty Python sketch in which the name of the canned pork product Spam is ubiquitous, unavoida ...

, in an attempt to bypass

filters Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...

. All these letter shapes may be manipulated with

MathML Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is a mathematical markup language, an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide Web ...

's attribute mathvariant. The introduction date of some of the more commonly used symbols can be found in the

Table of mathematical symbols by introduction date The following table lists many specialized symbols commonly used in modern mathematics, ordered by their introduction date. Note that the table can also be ordered alphabetically by clicking on the relevant header title. See also * History of ...

Tables of styled letters and digits

These tables show all styled forms of Latin and Greek letters, symbols and digits in the Unicode Standard, with the normal unstyled forms of these characters shown with a cyan background (the basic unstyled letters may be serif or sans-serif depending upon the font). The styled characters are mostly located in the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block, but the 24 characters in cells with a pink background are located in the

letterlike symbols Letterlike Symbols is a Unicode block containing 80 characters which are constructed mainly from the glyphs of one or more letters. In addition to this block, Unicode includes full styled mathematical alphabets, although Unicode does not expli ...

block, for example, ℛ () is at U+211B rather than the expected U+1D4AD which is reserved. In the code charts for the Unicode Standard, the reserved code points corresponding to the pink cell are annotated with the name and code point of the correct character. There are a few characters which have names that suggest that they should belong in the tables below, but in fact do not because their official character names are misnomers: * is not used as it is a special symbol for

litre The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...

.Unicode code chart U1D400 (PDF)
/ref> * is in fact the

Weierstrass p In mathematics, the Weierstrass elliptic functions are elliptic functions that take a particularly simple form. They are named for Karl Weierstrass. This class of functions are also referred to as ℘-functions and they are usually denoted by t ...

which was misnamed, but due to Unicode stability policies the official character name cannot be corrected.

Latin letters

The Unicode values of the characters in the tables below, except those shown with , or index values of '–', are obtained by adding the base values from the "U+" header row to the index values in the left column (both values are hexadecimal).

Greek letters and symbols

The Unicode values of the characters in the tables below, except those shown with or index values of '–', are obtained by adding the base values from the "U+" header row to the index values in the left column (both values are hexadecimal).

Digits

The Unicode values of the characters in the tables below are obtained by adding the hexadecimal base values from the "U+" header row to the index values in the left column.

Glyph variants

Variation selectors Variation Selectors is the block name of a Unicode code point block containing 16 variation selectors. Each variation selector is used to specify a specific glyph variant for a preceding character. They are currently used to specify standardize ...

may be used to specify chancery (U+FE00) vs

roundhand Round hand (also roundhand) is a type of handwriting and calligraphy originating in England in the 1660s primarily by the writing masters John Ayres and William Banson. Characterised by an open flowing hand (style) and subtle contrast of thick an ...

(U+FE01) forms, if the font supports them: The remainder of the set is at

Chart for the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols Mathematical notation Unicode blocks Mathematical symbols