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When was the use of \mathbb popularized as an alternative to \mathbf?

Of course there are the subjective preferences of certain authors, but when I read older articles, there appears to be an almost unanimous usage of what we would think of as \mathbf (possibly because of the use of typewriters before LaTeX), and now more recently it seems as if the use of \mathbb is becoming increasingly common.

Is there a reason for this switch in notation?

AnotherPerson
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  • The legend, as it was handed down to me, is that double-stem letters began as a blackboard representation of boldface. It then was imitated in typography. (No refs, might be an urban legend.) – Michael E2 Nov 19 '17 at 20:58
  • Adding to that: I think Springer was the first publisher to create a mathbb font, so unless one was a Springer author it seemed pretentious to use a mathbb symbol. I, for instance, tried to use mathbf the old fashioned way. – kimchi lover Nov 19 '17 at 21:57
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    This question has nothing to do with history of science and it is better to ask it on https://tex.stackexchange.com/ – Alexandre Eremenko Nov 20 '17 at 00:47
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    It's a question about the history of notation in mathematics, and thus just as suitable for hsm as (say) a question about the history of the division symbol or the decimal point. – Michael Weiss Nov 20 '17 at 00:51
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    For those who are unfamiliar with the LaTeX terminology, \mathbf (boldface) looks like this: $\mathbf R$, while \mathbb (blackboard) looks like this: $\mathbb R$. – JRN Nov 20 '17 at 01:39
  • For what it's worth, when I was writing my dissertation (spring-early summer 1993), there was no blackboard bold font in the LaTeX program on the department's mainframe computer. However, my adviser had a cobbled-together code fix consisting of a capital "i" next to a capital "r" that his students used. I recall that there was more than this --- one (or both?) of the letters being very slightly enlarged and maybe a slight vertical shift of one of the letters was also used. I don't know who came up with it, probably several people over time tinkering with various versions. – Dave L Renfro Nov 20 '17 at 12:14
  • I just checked with some early issues of a journal my adviser was an editor of, and it appears the blackboard boldface notation began appearing in this journal sometime around 1991 or 1992. I don't know how common the notation was for (real) blackboard lectures in the late 1960s or early 1970s, but it was very common at a couple of universities I had experience with in the mid to late 1970s. – Dave L Renfro Nov 20 '17 at 12:19
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    FYI, I haven't looked around much (yet?), but this 1991 paper is one of the earliest papers using blackboard bold that I know of right now. – Dave L Renfro Nov 20 '17 at 15:09
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    Here's a 1965 use, pre-TeX, of course. Wikipedia has some history and citations, too. – Michael E2 Nov 20 '17 at 21:12
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    If there was a predominant use of one with the other gradually becoming increasingly common then there was no "switch in notation", just gradual change. The comments seem to confirm that this is what happened. So what exactly is the question? – Conifold Nov 21 '17 at 01:23

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