# [Tex/LaTex] Size commands do not work in mathmode

fontsizemath-mode

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
$\wedge{\small\wedge}{\tiny\wedge}$
\end{document}


All the \wedges have the same size…

\small and \tiny are text font macros (just like \large, \huge, ...). You most likely received the following font warnings in your .log file:

LaTeX Font Warning: Command \small invalid in math mode on input line 3.

LaTeX Font Warning: Command \tiny invalid in math mode on input line 3.


Inside math mode, in order to use a different (smaller) font, you could/should use \scriptstyle or \scriptscriptstyle:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
$\wedge{\small\wedge}{\tiny\wedge}$\par
$\wedge{\scriptstyle\wedge}{\scriptscriptstyle\wedge}$
\end{document}


\scriptstyle denotes the font size of super-/subscripts, while \scriptscriptstyle denotes the font size for super-/subscripts of super-/subscripts. Thereafter (higher scripting), the font size remains at \scriptscriptsize. See

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
$x\ x^x\ x^{x^x}\ x^{x^{x^x}}\ x^{x^{x^{x^x}}}$
\end{document}


That's why there's a suggestion to use \scalebox (and possibly some height adjustment using \raisebox) - it allows you to have a little more variation in the fonts in smaller/larger sized.