Much of these formulae used to be handwritten, and still are handwritten at a blackboard / whiteboard in physics classes.
It's much easier to draw a fancy symbol by hand than write several simple letters quickly and legibly, and it also takes much less space.
We've been having the privilege to write using computers for last 20-25 years, when PCs became widespread, relatively cheap, and running good enough software. And this is outside the lecture hall settings anyway.
> Much of these formulae used to be handwritten, and still are handwritten at a blackboard / whiteboard in physics classes.
That is honestly the best argument I've ever heard (you're the first I see mention it). With as much as I hate writing rather than typing, I can see the point there actually. Maybe this practice is not as wholly stemming from elitism as it first seemed.
It's much easier to draw a fancy symbol by hand than write several simple letters quickly and legibly, and it also takes much less space.
We've been having the privilege to write using computers for last 20-25 years, when PCs became widespread, relatively cheap, and running good enough software. And this is outside the lecture hall settings anyway.