That’s where MathJax comes in the magical tool that lets us use $\TeX$ to make our equations look fancy and sophisticated on this here Cryptography site!

Now, I know what some of you might be thinking: “Math? On a cryptography website? What kind of sorcery is this?” Well, my friend, math is the backbone of all things crypto. It’s like the glue that holds our encryption algorithms together and makes them go round and round in circles (or elliptical curves).

So let’s get started with MathJax! First off, you need to make sure your browser supports it which is pretty much any modern one these days. If you’re using Chrome or Firefox, you should be good to go. But if you’re still rocking Internet Explorer 6 (which I hope isn’t the case), then you might want to upgrade to a newer version that actually works with MathJax.

Now syntax! To use $\TeX$, simply enclose your equations in dollar signs ($) or double dollar signs ($$). For example:

$x^2 + y^2 = z^2$

This will give you the classic Pythagorean theorem equation. If you want to make it look a bit fancier, try this:

$$ x^2 + y^2 = z^2 $$

See how that looks? Much nicer! And if you need to use subscripts or superscripts, just add them in like so:

$x_1 + x_2 + \cdots + x_n$

Or this:

$e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0$

You can also use MathJax for more complex equations. For example:

$$ E(k) = \sum_{i=1}^n f_i(x_i, k) $$

This is an equation from the field of cryptography that calculates the expected value of a function based on some input variables and a key. Pretty cool, huh? And if you want to get really fancy, try this:

$$ \begin{align} x^2 + y^2 &= z^2 \\ 0 &= w^2 x^2 y^2 \end{align} $$

This is a system of equations that describes the intersection between two circles. It’s used in cryptography to create elliptic curve algorithms, which are much more efficient than traditional RSA-style encryption methods.

MathJax and $\TeX$ on Cryptography making math look as good as it tastes (or something like that).