3. Mathematics on the Internet

One of the main interests of the current trend towards standardization of mathematical representation is the exchange of scientific information via the Internet.

As we all know, the vast majority of Internet browsing is done in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) or XHTML. These are dialects (not necessarily fully compliant as far as HTML is concerned) of XML (eXtensible Markup Language). . Broadly speaking, today's HTML-type standards incorporate the elements needed to display text with varying degrees of enrichment. These include basic typographical elements (bold, italic, font, subscript, superscript, etc.) and presentation elements (horizontal and vertical divisions, tables, frames, etc.). However, these elements are not sufficient to represent complex mathematical equations.

Progressively, XML (or XML-compatible) browsers...