How to correctly set functions using `\left(` and `\right)`? If one uses \left( and \right) to set functions an extra space is created between the function name and the brackets. How does one correctly set functions?  \documentclass{article}  \begin{document}   Compare $f(x)$ and $f\left(x\right)$. \end{document}   Edit  Because of the duplicate tag that was not removed when I edited my question, I created a new question which has a useful answer here:
Is it ever bad to use \left and \right? For mathematics, is it ever disadvantageous to use \left(  and \right)  in equations?  I can't see any way that doing this would hinder the typesetting, so why isn't () just converted into \left( \right) automatically? This would save a lot of typing.  Cheers!
Commutator Subgroup and the Largest Abelian Quotient Good day. I'm not too sure how I should go about asking my question, so if it is in anyway confusing, feel free to edit it.   In my Group Theory course we defined and showed a few properties of the commutator subgroup $[G,G]$ of a group $G$. And then we stated and proved a lemma in lecture that I'm having some difficulty wrapping my head around. I'll state it here for clarity.  Lemma a) The commutator subgroup $[G,G]$ of $G$ is a normal subgroup of $G$. b) The quotient group $G / [G,G]$ is the largest abelian quotient of G in the sense that every homomorphism $\varphi : G \to A$ where $A$ is an an abelian group, induces a unique homomorphism $\bar \varphi : G/[G,G] \to A$ so that $\varphi =\bar \varphi \circ \pi$ where $\pi : G \to G/[G,G]$ is the quotient homomorphism.  Now, it's not the proof of this lemma that I'm having trouble with, it's the italicized text that is messing with me. I completely understand what it is that the italicized text is saying, I'm just not too sure why it is that the property gives us the "largeness" that is claimed. I can see that the above forces $G$ to "pass through" $G/[G,G]$ before it "reaches" $A$ (I apologize for the casual terminology), so I can sort of see why $G/[G,G]$ should be the largest quotient, in a non-rigorous sort of way.  Overall I'm very confused. Perhaps I'm missing something very simple. Any help or nudges in the right direction would be much appreciated.   As a side note I did try a search on Google and here on Stack Exchange and couldn't find anything that answered my question. So if I missed something obvious, then my apologies. Thank you in advance. Show that for any prime $ p $, there are integers $ x $ and $ y $ such that $ p|(x^{2} + y^{2} + 1) $. Let $f$ be a nonconstant element of ring $\mathbb Z[x]$. Prove that $\langle f \rangle$ is not maximal in $\mathbb Z[x]$.   Let us assume $\langle f \rangle$ is maximal. Then $\mathbb Z[x] / \langle f \rangle$ would be a field. Let $a \in \mathbb{Z}$. Then $a + \langle f \rangle$ is a nonzero element of this field, hence a unit. Let $g + \langle f \rangle$ be its inverse. Then $a g - 1 \in \langle f \rangle$, hence $ag(x)-1 = f(x)h(x)$ for some $h \in Z[x]$, hence $ag(0) + f(0)h(0) = 1$, thus $(a,f(0))=1$ for all $a \in \Bbb Z$, contradiction, hence the proof.  Is my argument correct? Is there any other method? Making the background of an image transparent in Gimp I have some jpg images and I need for each of them to have a transparent background.  I have GIMP as a graphic tool.   I need to put them in a web page and I need to see just the main element and have a transparent background. Determining possible minimal polynomials for a rank one linear operator I have come across a question about determining possible minimal polynomials for a rank one linear operator and I am wondering if I am using the correct proof method.  I think that the facts needed to solve this problem come from the section on Nilpotent operators from Hoffman and Kunze's "Linear Algebra".     Question: Let $V$ be a vector space of dimension $n$ over the field $F$ and consider a linear operator $T$ on $V$ such that $\mathrm{rank}(T) = 1$.  List all possible minimal polynomials for $T$.   Sketch of Proof:   If $T$ is nilpotent then the minimal polynomial of $T$ is $x^k$ for some $k\leq n$.  So suppose $T$ is not nilpotent, then we can argue that $T$ is diagonalizable based on the fact that $T$ must have one nonzero eigenvalue otherwise it would be nilpotent (I am leaving details of the proof of diagonalization but it is the observation that the characteristic space of the nonzero eigenvalue is the range of T and has dimension $1$).  Thus the minimal polynomial of $T$ is just a linear term $x-c$.    Did I make a mistake assuming that $T$ can have only one nonzero eigenvalue?  Thanks for your help Do spice containers need to be hermetic? How to order files by last modified time in ruby? Which one should be used?      To me, it makes no difference, but I'm not really sure why.   vs     For me, it makes no difference, but I'm not really sure why. SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\xa3' in file when function returns '£' How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX? How to activate quota for users on folders? Access images inside jar I've been going through Shankar's Principles of Quantum Mechanics. In the section of the system of identical particles, he uses an example of billiards to illustrate the difference between identical particles in classical vs. quantum mechanics. He argues that in classical mechanics, we can track the history of a particle (a billiard ball) to distinguish it from another particle with no intrinsic differences. In quantum mechanics, however, he argues since continual observation is not possible, we can't use the same method to distinguish identical particles. A potential counter-example I thought was: suppose we have two non-interacting particles in the same square well. And at the end of some measurement, we find that one particle 1 is in a stationary state $\psi_1$, and particle 2 in $\psi_2$. We measure the system again after some time $t$, then we know whichever particle that's in $\psi_1$ must be particle 1 from the previous measurement. And the same goes for particle 2. Thus we can distinguish the two &quot;identical&quot; particles. What conceptual mistakes am I making here? How do I tell what gauge wire I need? I've been working on providing power for high current applications for my project. I'm working on a project with high current (or at least compared to what I'm used to...)  What a lot of people point to online is tables that you can look up the resistance for AWG per foot, and then you can calculate the current drop of your wire. However, with that current drop, how much of  a voltage drop will make my wire "too hot" and risk a fire? Am I looking at this the wrong way? How do I calculate the temperature of the wire and decide when it'll be too hot, and I should use a thicker wire? Why was Peeves in Hogwarts? Peeves was a poltergeist. It generally irritated people and rather then helping them as well as making fun of them.   Why was Peeves in the school? What is/was the job or work assigned to Peeves? How can I save the command and its execution output to file at the same time Suppose I have a command java -cp src/ nlp.lm.BigramModel wsj/ 0.1, I want to save the command itself and the command execution output to the file at the same time.  One way to do this is to   echo "$ java -cp src/ nlp.lm.BigramModel atis/ 0.1" &gt; trace/bigram-trace.txt     java -cp src/ nlp.lm.BigramModel atis/ 0.1 &gt;&gt; trace/bigram-trace.txt   Is there a better way to do this? Recommendation for mobile prepaid SIM card for smartphone + home calls in Germany What SIM card would you recommend for a smartphone user for travel in Germany?  It would be probably the only or the most important connection to the Internet, so large amounts of data and relatively fast transfer is an issue.  I need to stay in touch with friends and family, so the calls to other EU countries should be as cheap as possible.   For to the first criteria, I found the T-Mobile offer interesting. The internet costs 10 Euros/month and after reaching the transfer limit it stays relatively fast. According to tests (Galileo from Pro7, AFAIR) it has also the best coverage. However, calls to other countries are very expensive.  For to second criteria, Lebara and Mobilka are interesting. The calls are very cheap, but there are problems with signal strength in many locations, where T-Mobile has no problem. The voice quality, at least in Lebara, is also limited. They both have mobile internet with unlimited transfer, but after reaching the high speed limit, the transfer is reduced to 64 kbps, which is too slow.  I've found out that O2 has foreign calls at moderate prices, but I haven't yet checked for details. There are so many other options, making it is hard to compare them all without spending the whole weekend on it. So, if someone has found a better option than having 2 SIM cards and constantly switching them, this answer would be greatly appreciated. Recurrence relation for number of ternary strings that contain two consecutive zeros The question is: Find a recurrence relation for number of ternary strings of length n that contain two consecutive zeros.    I know for ternary strings with length one, there are 0. For a length of 2, there is just 1 (00), and for a length of 3, there are 5 (000,001,002,100,200).    I did a similar problem, finding a relation for the number of bit strings of length n with two consecutive zeros: $$a_n = a_{n-1} + a_{n-2} + 2^{n-2}$$    Since you can add "1" to the end of all the $a_{n-1}$ strings, "10" to all the $a_{n-2}$ strings, and "00" any string of size $n-2$.    For the ternary string problem, I'm pretty sure you would replace the $2^{n-2}$ with $3^{n-2}$, but confused about the other terms of the relation. My guess is that it would have the coefficient $2$ in front of the other terms, since you can add either $1$ or $2$ to the end of $a_{n-1}$ and either $01$ or $02$ at the end of $a_{n-1}$.    So I believe the answer for the relation is: $$a_n = 2a_{n-1} + 2a_{n-2} + 3^{n-2}$$    How does that look? If $a$ and $b$ are two roots of $x^4 + x^3 - 1 = 0$ prove that $ab$ is a root of $x^6 + x^4 + x^3 - x^2 - 1$. Evolution threads extra lines before signature