Introduction to Markdown

Author: Rob Raddi


Goal:

Create high-quality documents for students, professors, websites, blogs, manuscripts, etc...

Motives:

  1. Very light-weight language---easy to read and write.
  2. Able to be learned in 10-15 min.
  3. Complex mathematical expressions can become very tedious.
  4. Microsoft Word's equation editor is absolute trash, especially when using greek symbols.

What is a Markup Language?

Markup is a generic term for a language that describes a document's formatting.

  • User interface (UI) markup languages
  • Java, HTML, CSS

  • General purpose markup languages
  • XML, YAML, XHTML

  • Document markup languages
  • LaTeX, reStructuredText (rst), Markdown, GitHub Flavored Markdown

    What is Markdown?

    Markdown is a specific markup library that carries out text-to-HTML conversion for writers.

    Developed by: John Gruber
    Initial release: March 19, 2004
    Latest release: December 17, 2004
    Markdown Website

    Five Examples

    Lennard-Jones potential:

    $$ LJ(r) = 4\epsilon( ({\frac{\sigma}{r}})^{12} - ({\frac{\sigma}{r}})^{6} ) \tag{1} $$

    Application of Hooke's Law to vibrational frequency:

    $$ \displaystyle \widetilde{\nu}={\frac{1}{2\pi c}}{\sqrt {\frac {k_{force}}{\mu}}} \tag{2} $$

    Redox Reaction:

    $$ [Fe(CN)_{6}]^{3-} + e^{-} \rightleftharpoons [Fe(CN)_{6}]^{4-} \hspace{0.5cm} E_{cell} = 0.356\hspace{0.1cm} V\tag{3} $$

    Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle:

    $$ \delta \widehat{x} \delta \widehat{p} = \sqrt{ \langle\widehat{x}^{2}\rangle - \langle\widehat{x}\rangle^{2} }\sqrt{ \langle\widehat{p}^{2}\rangle - \langle\widehat{p}\rangle^{2} } \geq \frac{\hbar}{2} \tag{4} $$

    Volume of Sphere in Spherical Coordinates:

    $$ {\displaystyle V=\int_{0}^{2\pi}\int_{0}^{\pi}\int_{0}^{r}\rho^{2}\sin\theta \,d\rho\,d\theta \,d\varphi =2\pi\int_{0}^{\pi}\int_{0}^{r}\rho^{2}\sin\theta \,d\rho\,d\theta =4\pi\int_{0}^{r}\rho^{2}\,d\rho\ ={\frac{4}{3}}\pi r^{3}.} \tag{5} $$

    How to get started:

    1. GitHub Flavored Markdown Cheatsheet

    2. My github page

    3. LaTeX Mathematics