How can I write tilde ~ in math mode? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to look up a symbol?
How does one insert a backslash or a tilde into LaTeX?

~ makes symbols after them 'phantoms'. I want just to write '~' in math mode and \~ doesn't work. How can I solve this problem?

(I want to write 'x is asymptotically normal distributed')

Also related answer for different choices tex.stackexchange.com/questions/9363/… — percusse, Commented Dec 10, 2012 at 14:55
@percusse That question is more oriented towards getting a tilde in text mode. — egreg, Commented Dec 10, 2012 at 14:55
The other famous tilde question could be made a bit more general and canonical by changing it to mean both text and math mode. Answers deal already with it in math mode. And the top answer could easily edited to reflect also math mode. I think this would be better than making near-duplicates distinct, so I think the dupe vote of @doncherry would be good. — Stefan Kottwitz, Commented Dec 10, 2012 at 16:07

Thanos · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-10 14:55:39Z

139

There are various ways to do it.

Mathmode

\sim

Using package amssymb

\thicksim

Textmode

\textasciitilde

You can always check detexify

answered Dec 10, 2012 at 14:55

Thanos

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7

Using \sim would appear to be the mathematically most correct way, since it produces TILDE OPERATOR (which is vertically positioned at operator level) as opposite to the Ascii TILDE (typically positioned higher).
– Jukka K. Korpela
Commented Dec 10, 2012 at 15:11
1

@JukkaK.Korpela: You are right. That's why I choose to mention it first. But I think that one has to have alternatives that best suit his/her needs!
– Thanos
Commented Dec 10, 2012 at 15:34
9

If you don't want the space after the tilde, you can wrap it with curly braces. For example: ${\sim} 10$
– DanHickstein
Commented Jan 3, 2017 at 18:12
@DanHickstein Fantastic tip. Exactly what most of us will need! (And it is not obvious...)
– Avatar
Commented Apr 25, 2018 at 5:46

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