There are four environments that put LaTeX in math mode: math, displaymath, eqnarray, and equation. The math environment is for formulas that appear right in the text. The displaymath and equation environments are for formulas that appear on their own line; they differ only insofar as the latter prints an equation number. LaTeX will not break lines in displaymath or equation environments unless told to do so with a \\ command.
The displaymath environment can be entered by
\begin{displaymath}
math equation \\
second line of math equation
\end{displaymath}
Because displaymath may be used frequently to display relatively short equations, there are convenient alternative forms:
\[ displayed math equation \]
or (the following does not seem to be well documented, but appears to work)
$$ dispalyed math equation $$
Related topics
Back to the Table of Contents