Talk:Optimal control

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The main reason for underlining matrixes (as per comment by User:Oleg_Alexandrov), in mathemtics and engineering, is to differentiate them from scalars or vectors. Sure, capital letters can also be used; I am sorry I didn't check for consitency first.

Underlining matrices is in fact rather rare in mathematics, as can be seen by a quick look at various Wikipedia articles on mathematical topics. I can think of only two specific situations where it is occasionally done: in fluid mechanics (where tensors are doubly underlined) and in hand-written or badly type-set text, where one cannot use boldface. I'm therefore against underlining matrices in this article.

Personally, I think it looks ugly and it is rather useless, since the reader needs to remember what all the variables stand for anyway. For the same reasons, I am against using boldface for vectors, but I know that this is more controversial. -- Jitse Niesen 11:59, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Jitse. I wish to thank the anonimous contributior for the explanation. Oleg Alexandrov 16:34, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)