I’m guessing a typesetter was too lazy to add a different-size font and although they knew how to type “√”, didn’t realize “²” is in Unicode too. They added a horizontal line as separate graphics to extend the square root symbol but only realized too late the whole thing is in a fraction: maybe someone reminded them and they misinterpreted the advice, or just decided not to split the text box to put the nominator higher.
Unicode isn’t meant to replace all typesetting like LaTeX. For example, I can’t make proper horizontal fractions (as opposed to slashed like ⅝ or ⁹⁄₁₆) that are normal in my part of the world because that would be too much scope creep.
An imperfect solution is adding ̅ U+0305 COMBINING OVERLINE above everything. For example, it does not sit at consistent height (√4̅a̅c̅) and Windows renders it incorrectly (centered to the right edge of the character, not its center).
This is how I’d render the numerator using Unicode only:
𝑏² ± √4̅𝑎̅𝑐̅
I’m guessing a typesetter was too lazy to add a different-size font and although they knew how to type “√”, didn’t realize “²” is in Unicode too. They added a horizontal line as separate graphics to extend the square root symbol but only realized too late the whole thing is in a fraction: maybe someone reminded them and they misinterpreted the advice, or just decided not to split the text box to put the nominator higher.
Can you even do that “proper” square root with unicode? Or is it always just that single character?
Unicode isn’t meant to replace all typesetting like LaTeX. For example, I can’t make proper horizontal fractions (as opposed to slashed like ⅝ or ⁹⁄₁₆) that are normal in my part of the world because that would be too much scope creep.
An imperfect solution is adding
̅ U+0305 COMBINING OVERLINEabove everything. For example, it does not sit at consistent height (√4̅a̅c̅) and Windows renders it incorrectly (centered to the right edge of the character, not its center).This is how I’d render the numerator using Unicode only:
𝑏² ± √4̅𝑎̅𝑐̅