The Web represents a fundamental change in the underlying model for knowledge exchange compared with the traditional printing of mathematics, a change in which interconnectivity and interactivity play a central role. The Web world is more dynamic, in the literal and the general senses, than the document-centric view of SGML maths to date. Putting maths on the Web requires capturing both notation and content in such a way that documents can utilize both the highly-evolved notational practices of print, and the emerging capabilities of the new electronic medium for automatic processing.
Mathematics uses a complex and highly evolved system of two-dimensional symbolic notation. As Pierce has written (Pierce, John R.; An Introduction to Information Theory. Symbols, Signals and Noise, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1980), mathematics and its notation should not be viewed as one and the same thing. However, the relation between meaning and notation is subtle, and part of the power of mathematics derives from its ability to represent and manipulate ideas in symbolic form.
Existing image-based methods of transmitting scientific notation over the Web are inadequate. Document quality is poor, authoring is difficult, and the mathematical content is not available for searching, indexing, or reuse.
Increasingly researchers, engineers, educators and students work remotely, relying on electronic communication. Peter Drucker has recently prophesied the end of big-campus residential higher education and its distribution over the Web (Drucker,Peter; Forbes, 10 March 1997 - quoted by Gene Klotz).
To satisfy these broad requirements, MathML proposes a language containing three element groups. Presentation elements are concerned with layout and rendering of the mathematical notation. Content elements encode the mathematical constructs or 'meaning' of an expression. Interface elements provide mechanisms for embedding MathML expressions within HTML pages, and passing the necessary information between a browser and a MathML-aware helper application.
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