Fluther: Why does the carat (i.e. ^ ) character sometimes not appear ...

Why does the carat (i.e. ^ ) character sometimes not appear in an answer, even when it shows up in preview?

Asked by Zaku (30354

) March 19th, 2021
17 responses
“Great Question” (3

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In my answer to the question at https://www.fluther.com/225899/why-does-1kg-squared-1kg-while-1000-grams-squared-higher/#quip3712026 I tried to indicate “grams squared” as g^{2. That is a g, followed by a carat character (} ) followed by a 2. (Well, it fails here too – showing up in preview, but not in the posted question Details.) I wrote this consistently, and it appeared consistently in the preview, but after saving the answer, the answer itself shows just g2 (and kg2) on the last line, but shows it correctly on the lines above that. What on earth is going on, and is there a way around it?

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Topics: Fluther, bugs, mathematics, carat character

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Answers

Oh, I think I see what’s happening, at least.

In the final (non-preview) version, an ^ will show up if there is only one per line.

Testing… yep!

But if there are TWO per line, then the text between them gets ^{altered in a barely visible way.} Like, it’s almost imperceptibly ^smaller.

Testing… yep!

I wonder if there is a way to get more than one carat to show up… hmm… testing: ^^ Like this: g^^2 ?

Well, I can get two in a row… not sure how to get just one, twice. Hmm.

Zaku (30354

)“Great Answer” (3

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@Zaku Thanks for the sluthing.

RedDeerGuy1 (24463

)“Great Answer” (1

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It seems like the carat functions as some kind of hypertext code. Perhaps if you put a space after the carat before the next letter or number, it will not read as hypertext code. I usually only use two and that is to indicate a reaction to something above me, but that is my best guess.

janbb (62875

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If you have a space between the ^^ only the first ^ shows, I think that I have had it do that !

^{There are 5} with a space between in the example to the left. none show, only the smaller text!

Tropical_Willie (31125

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Hmm.
* * ->
g* *2 -> g2
g* 2 -> g^ 2
g* 2 kg* 2 -> g^{2 kg} 2
A space between two carats seems to vanish.
And a space after a carat seems not to change the behavior. Buy good idea. Some escape character might do it, but the links in the help don’t seem to say anything about it.

/* /* -> /^/

Zaku (30354

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Formatting on Fluther can seem very inconsistent and frustrating. You’d probably have to do something like what I did to get bullets to show as
• bullet
and to make a c in parentheses (following a and b) show up as is rather than as a copyright symbol©, always with an annoying nonspace before it.

I use ampersand (&) + ‘bull’ (no quotes) + semicolon (;) for bullet and precede the parenthetical with a nonbreaking space, (&) + ‘nbsp’ (no quotes) + semicolon (;).

Fluther was probably designed for simplicity, though, and not for some of the things we’ve tried to do with it over time. I can say that this approach made it less intimidating for me and probably a lot of other people. All we really need to know for styling text and inserting links appears beneath the answer block.

Jeruba (55829

)“Great Answer” (2

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Well that’s amusing… g&^;2 &carat; &power; ⊃ &ex; ^

OMG – thanks to your clue and an HTML reference, I found it!

To get a carat, do:

(&) + ‘Hat’ + (;)

The letter H must be capitalized.

Wow… ok… now will I remember that, or where this is, by the time I next want to write two ^‘s on one line?

I wonder if there’s a way to actually raise the number of the power up? Probably…

Zaku (30354

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