[Tex/LaTex] Double backslash \\ does not work in equation environment

equationsline-breakingmath-mode

enter image description here

My problem is that inside equation environment double backslash \\ does not seem to work as expected to force a line break: 

\begin{equation*}

        \fontsize{12}{15} \text{1.  (a) State the Mean Value Theorem.}\\
        \fontsize{12}{15}\text{(b) Consider the function} 
        g:\mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}
\end{equation*}

In this piece of code, I couldn't find a way to make that \\ work. I want element (b) to be where I draw it with red.

What is the problem with this code and how can I make that \\ work?

Best Answer

The equation environment is not designed for line-breaking. For this purpose exist the environments multline, gather, align, etc (and their starred versions) provided by the amsmath package. (There also exists the eqnarray of LaTeX but it isn't recommended).

For your example you should use the enumerate environment (and if you want something more personalized combine with the enumitem package).

Example

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
    \item
    \begin{enumerate}
        \item State the Mean Value Theorem.
        \item Consider the function $g:\mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$
    \end{enumerate}
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}

Result

enter image description here

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