TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter gives the background you need to understand the origin, goals, and benefits of MathML. It explains the problems with current ways of representing mathematics on the Web and shows why MathML is an effective solution to these problems. It describes the history of MathML and explains its relation to other Web standards such as HTML and XML. Finally, it describes the various practical uses of MathML such as Web publishing and interchange of mathematical content between applications.
MathML, the Mathematical Markup Language, is an XML application for encoding mathematics on the Web. It provides a simple but precise syntax for encoding both the visual structure and the symbolic meaning of mathematics. Using MathML, you can display even the most complex mathematical notation in a Web page with a high degree of fidelity and clarity. At the same time, the meaning of the notation can be preserved so that, for example, you can copy and paste an equation from a Web page into a computer algebra system for evaluation.
MathML was the first XML application endorsed by the W3C and is supported by major software vendors (including IBM, HP, Microsoft, and Sun) as well as by professional organizations such as the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Currently, a major development effort to create tools for authoring, rendering, and processing MathML...
