MathML - Overview

MathML stands for Mathematical Markup Language and is an XML based application. It is used to describe mathematical and scientific notations. It's 1 and 2 version were created and developed by The Math Working Group which is one of the oldest W3C Working Groups during 1996-2004. MathML version 3 was created during Math Working Group's second activity period (2006-2016)and is an ISO standard.

Math on Web

MathML is XML based and have limited number of tags which can be used to mark up a mathematical equation in terms of format and its semantics. MathML intends to capture meaning of syntax as well as formatting of the equation. Considering the fact the mathematical equations are often meaningful to many applications so writing them using MathML handles formatting as well as meaning of an equation. MathML provides low-level format to describing mathematics as a basis taken for machine to machine communication.

Various applications like algebra systems, print typesetters can use MathML to encode mathematical notation for high-quality visual display, and mathematical content and scientific software, voice synthesizers can use MathML for semantics.

MathML provides two ways to represent a mathematical notation.

• Presentational Way − It uses mark up tags like mrow, mi, mo along with mathematical operators etc.

• Semantic Way − It uses mark up tags like apply, eq, power etc.

We are using MathJax library to render MathML syntax so that it can run on all major browsers. It currently supports presentational way only.

Example: Presentational Way

Syntax

<math xmlns = "http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
   <mrow>
      <mrow>
         <msup> <mi>x</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msup> <mo>+</mo>
         <mrow>
            <mn>4</mn>
            <mo>⁢</mo>
            <mi>x</mi>
         </mrow>
         <mo>+</mo>
         <mn>4</mn>
      </mrow>
      
      <mo>=</mo>
      <mn>0</mn>
   </mrow>
</math>

Output