# Why isn't MathJax enabled on this site?

MathJax would be handy for formatting things like the formulas in the following abstract:

We analyze the most commonly used method for shuffling cards. The main result is a simple expression for the chance of any arrangement after any number of shuffles. This is used to give sharp bounds on the approach to randomness: $\frac{3}{2} \log_2 n + \theta$ shuffles are necessary and sufficient to mix up $n$ cards. Key ingredients are the analysis of a card trick and the determination of the idempotents of a natural commutative subalgebra in the symmetric group algebra.

Bayer, Dave; Diaconis, Persi. Trailing the Dovetail Shuffle to its Lair. Ann. Appl. Probab. 2 (1992), no. 2, 294--313. doi:10.1214/aoap/1177005705. http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aoap/1177005705.

• MathJax is off by default, but we can enable it if there's a demonstrated need. How frequently do cases like this occur? – hairboat Feb 23 '15 at 18:52
• @abbyhairboat "MathJax is off by default [...]" Why? Is it detrimental to performance? Does it takes a significant amount of development to enable? Your comment would make a wonderful answer to the question if it was explained. The question wasn't "Please enable it." but "Why is it disabled to begin with?" – Rainbolt Mar 2 '15 at 19:22
• @Rainbolt, there's been a few questions about probability on this site. Since we cover poker, M:TG deckbuilding theory, and Hi Ho Cherry-O here, probability and math go with us. I'll cheerfully admit that we don't break out the math on the vast majority of our questions, but there's still a few that could use it. – PotatoEngineer Mar 4 '15 at 19:20
• @PaulMarshall Why was that comment directed at me? – Rainbolt Mar 4 '15 at 19:44
• Basically, the reason I asked abby about her comment is that you can't only cover the pros. Sure, we could use MathJax. But we need to know the downsides too, so we can weigh the cons and the pros against one another. If we use MathJax on 10% of questions but it decreases performance by 20% on all pages, well that's just not good. – Rainbolt Mar 4 '15 at 19:49
• @Rainbolt (4 comments up) yes, it is detrimental to performance. My experience suggests that it adds an extra half second or more to page load times, depending on the speed of the client computer, though I'm sure there are more reliable studies about this. It may also have some impact on the servers. – David Z Mar 5 '15 at 7:53
• @DavidZ Great. Do you want to post that as an answer? Coming from me, it's speculation. You seem to have experience to back it up. – Rainbolt Mar 5 '15 at 16:23
• @Rainbolt well, most of what I know comes from the discussions we had with the SE team when deciding whether to enable MathJax on Physics; I wouldn't really call it experience. I don't think I have much of anything useful to add to your answer. – David Z Mar 6 '15 at 0:36