8.12: Subscripts and Superscripts

One way to create subscripts and superscripts in strings is to use unicode and concatenate.  The following table gives unicode subscript and superscript values that you may often needc

character

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

+

-

superscript

U2070

U00B9

U00B2

U00B3

U2074

U2075

U2076

U2077

U2078

U2079

U207A

U207B

subscript

U2080

U2081

U2082

U2083

U2084

U2085

U2086

U2087

U2088

U2089

U208A

U208B

 

#We will now use concatenation to create the formula for sulfuric acid.
sulfuric_acid="H"+"\u2082"+"SO"+'\u2084'
sulfate_ion = "SO"+"\u2084\u207B\u00B2"
print(sulfuric_acid, "and", sulfate_ion)

Hello world!

Note, we can make variables for the unicode

s2,s3,s4,s5,s6,s7,s8,s9="\u2082","\u2083","\u2084","\u2085","\u2086",\
                         "\u2087","\u2088","\u2089"
ammonium_phosphate="(NH"+s4+")"+s3+"PO"+s4
print(ammonium_phosphate)

Hello world!

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

You want the following code to display

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Alter the code below to produce this output

The following code does not work.  comment out the print statement and uncomment the lines above and below it, and then complete the expression for x so that the code works.

#the following line assigns subscripts to the varibles using unicode   
s2,s3,s4,s5,s6,s7,s8,s9="\u2082","\u2083","\u2084","\u2085","\u2086",\
                         "\u2087","\u2088","\u2089"
#x=
n_nonane="CH"+s3+7*"(CH"+s2+")"+"CH"+s3
#n_nonane="CH"+s3+7*x+"CH"+s3
print(n_nonane)

Hello world!

 

Answer

x = "(CH"+s2+")"