Originally posted by RacerX
Okay, I'll bite... how do you define real(tm) mathematicians?
In my day (as if that was all that long ago), being able to produce math that earned the respect of respected real mathematicians (say like... Fields Medalist, of which I've worked with three) was always a good measure. Getting paid to do real math was even better (like from the NSF, DOE, and even some engineers 
... I had to pay for classes and books some how).
Well I did have my FM (M.S. in USA) in math before I jumped ship to computer science (actually I still kinda sit in the intersection of the two). But I guess that I may have sullied my reputation as a mathematician that way
Anyhow math is just like anything else I have known lots of real mathematicians (and would count myself in that number) as well as real biologists, physicits, and journalists. Funny thing is there wasn't a Nobel, Pulitzer or a Turing award in the lot. (Well I have met Pauling and Erdos but I didn't *know* them in any sense of the word) I guess that you run in better circles than I do
As for the LaTeX thing almost everyone I knew used TeX or LaTeX for real math and it was second nature. We would use it in boring old ASCII email to make something more specific and not even miss a beat. Think about if you had to type by clicking on the little letters in that character picker thingy, that is exactly what using an equation editor is like. If I am typing and want to enter something simple like $\sum_{i=1}^{42}\alpha_i$ in LaTeX it comes out just about as fast as I would be able to read it aloud. Not quite as fast as I type English text but not bad...now if I had to use the clicky pallet thingy...
It may just be a bias on my part but if I am reading a paper in Word or LaTeX the latter tend to be much more mathematically rigorous in the presentation of their work. The "math" included in Word articles is usually simpler and less relevent to the actual point. However, that may be more of a reflection on the style and personality of the different research subcultures. However, I think that there is a little bit of Sapir-Wharf going on as well; if it is expensive/difficult to be mathematically precise in your communication then you will obviously sacrifice some of that rigour in the interest of efficiency. The original research may well have be equally rigorous but the presentation is not.
I have been working with a set of cognitive scientists of late and I can clearly see this effect now that I have to use Word 'cause everyone else does. Equations and floating figures are simply not maintained as part of working documents. That is something reserved for the final pass before it is "done" because it is too hard to maintain them in a living document and it is too time consuming to create them willy nilly. Sure we can delete 800 words of text without blinking but not that goofy 8 element equation...
Hi my name is Eric and I am a bitter LaTeX refugee awash in a sea of Word
