News Release: World Wide Web Consortium Issues MathML 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation

World Wide Web Consortium Issues MathML 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation

Scientists from Industry and Academia Produce Definitive Solution for
Math on the Web

Contact America -- 
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613 
Contact Europe -- 
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33. 492.38.75.94 
Contact Asia -- 
Kazuhiro Kitagawa <kaz@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170 

Web Resources for MathML 2.0

Press Release:
http://www.w3.org/2001/02/mathml2-pressrelease.html

Testimonials from American Mathematical Society, Boeing, Design Science,
IBM e-business Standards Strategy, Waterloo Maple Inc. and Wolfram
Research, Inc.:	
http://www.w3.org/2001/02/mathml2-testimonial

MathML 2.0 Implementation and Interoperability Report: 
http://www.w3.org/Math/iandi/

MathML 2.0 Overview:
http://www.w3.org/Math/Activity

MathML Specifications: 

	Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0
	http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-MathML2-20010221/

--------

http://www.w3.org/ -- 21 February 2001 -- The World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) today announced the release of the Mathematical Markup Language
(MathML) 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation. MathML 2.0 , an XML application,
provides encoding mathematical notation and content for use on the Web.
A
W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes
to
Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who
are
in favor of supporting its adoption by academic, industry, and research
communities.

MathML 2.0 Extends the Foundation for Math on the Web

MathML 2.0 consists of a number of XML tags which can be used to mark up
an
equation in terms of its presentation and also its semantics. As a
result,
MathML 2.0 attempts to capture something of the meaning behind equations
rather than concentrating entirely on how they are going to be formatted
out on the screen. This is because mathematical equations are meaningful
to
many applications, independent of how they are rendered aurally or
visually. 

"What HTML did for text on the Web, MathML 2.0 does for the language of
mathematics," explained Vincent Quint, W3C User Interface Domain Leader.
"And because it is written in XML, it makes it possible for Math content
to
be not only displayed, but able to be reused and transformed by other
applications on the Web."

MathML 2.0 is intended to facilitate the use and re-use of mathematical
and
scientific content on the Web, and for other applications such as
computer
algebra systems, print typesetting, and voice synthesizers. MathML can
be
used to encode both the presentation of mathematical notation for
high-quality visual display, and mathematical content, for applications
where the semantics plays more of a key role such as scientific software
or
voice synthesis.

MathML 2.0 Integrates W3C Technologies

MathML 2.0 builds on MathML 1 by extending the set of symbols and
expressions, and through improved integration of other W3C technologies.
Users of MathML 2.0 are now able to combine it with other W3C
technologies
to make more dynamic and varied content. 

Equations can be styled with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), links can be
associated to any math expression through XML Linking Language (XLink),
and
MathML elements can be seamlessly included in XHTML documents with
namespaces. MathML2 also includes the MathML Document Object Model
(MathML
DOM), which provides a more convenient, and MathML-specific way to
identify
MathML components and enable any scripting language to manipulate it. 

The Math Working Group has produced test suites, and is already at work
developing an XML Schema for MathML2, as well as a hybrid schema to
combine
XHTML and MathML 2.0 

MathML 2.0 Embraced by Industry, Research and Academic Leaders

MathML 2.0 was produced by the W3C Math Working Group, an assembly of
industry leaders and experts including the American Mathematical
Society,
Boeing Corporation, Universitá di Bologna, Design Science, IBM,
MacKichan
Technologies, MATH.EDU INC., Microsoft Corporation, NAG, Penta Scope,
Stilo
Technologies, Stratum Technical Services Ltd. Waterloo Maple Inc.,
University of Western Ontario, and Wolfram Research.

MathML 2.0 is recognized as a mature and essential technology by both
the
mathematical community and software developers and manufacturers. Today,
MathML 2.0 already has 17 known implementations and a variety of
implementors and endorsers, as indicated in the testimonials page.

About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing
common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run
by
the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the USA, the
National
Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in France
and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium
include:
a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and
users, and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use
of
new technology. To date, over 500 organizations are Members of the
Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

###

Testimonials

American Mathematical Society | Boeing | Design Science | IBM e-business
Standards Strategy | Waterloo Maple Inc. | Wolfram Research, Inc.

In addition to the testimonials, there are 17 known implementations of
MathML 2.0, which are reported in detail at:
http://www.w3.org/Math/iandi/

Better communication of mathematics over the World Wide Web will further
educational, scientific and technical aims. The AMS welcomes MathML 2.0
as
a significant step in this direction, and looks forward to the time when
widespread use of MathML facilitates accessible storage of science and
interaction with it. The AMS is happy to have participated in the
Working
Group which has brought together industry and academics to develop the
fundamental technology for integrating mathematics into the Web
architecture. 
Together with our partners in STIPUB the AMS hopes the future
contribution
of the freely-licensed STIX Fonts covering all the symbols of
mathematics
in Unicode will lead, in conjunction with MathML, to rich and versatile
mathematical display.
-- Donald G. Babbitt, Publisher, American Mathematical Society

The Boeing Company deals with many suppliers and customers worldwide. In
addition, the company is geographically distributed across the United
States and also has offices worldwide. We see XML as a most important
future technology for exchanging data with customers, suppliers, and our
own internal divisions in an environment where many different computer
and
software systems are employed. 
In particular, with respect to MathML, there is a considerable need to
interchange technical documents, containing mathematical formulas, via
the
web---both for communicating between different engineering groups within
the company and external vendors and customers. For the immediate
future,
we see MathML as being a necessary technology for achieving this goal.
-- Ivor Philips, Boeing

WebEQ has been used extensively in preparing the MathML 2.0 test suite,
and
though work on that is still ongoing, we believe it is safe to say WebEQ
will accept all tests in the suite in our next commercial release. Work
on
MathML 2.0 implementation is well underway internally, and full MathML
2.0
support is anticipated in our future releases. At this time, we see no
important obstacles to MathML 2.0 implementation and interoperability.
-- Paul Topping, President, Design Science

IBM has helped to create first MathML 1.0 and now the MathML 2.0
Proposed
Recommendation, and through our techexplorer Hypermedia Browser we have
helped MathML become an enabler for many areas of Web-based education.
MathML 2.0 is an example of a vocabulary that now leverages established
W3C
Web architecture components such as the DOM, XSL and CSS. By bringing
these
components together in product and standards, we expect MathML to
continue
the revolution in scientific and technical electronic publishing for
engineers, physicians, scientists, and researchers. 
-- Bob Sutor, Director, IBM e-business Standards Strategy

Waterloo Maple looks forward to a new era in the mathematical software
industry. MathML 2.0 offers the critical interoperability that will
enable
users to coordinate Maple's world-leading symbolic computation
technology
with other important components such as equation editors, web browsers,
and
even office productivity tools. We believe that the industry has hit the
limit of what the proprietary frameworks of math software can offer, and
that the future lies in a truly open world where the best technologies
can
be integrated for maximum productivity and effectiveness. MathML 2.0 is
key
to establishing this exciting future. Our commitment to supporting this
vision is solid, with very comprehensive and innovative tools already
under
development.
-- Dr. Tom Lee, VP Marketing and Executive Product Manager, Waterloo
Maple
Inc.

Mathematica V3 represented the first truly integrated typesetting and
symbolic mathematics system. We were pleased to contribute our
experience
to the development of MathML, which is based on ideas in Mathematica. As
the official system for processing math in US Patents, Mathematica has
generated hundreds of thousands of MathML expressions since May, 1999.
The
experience gained from this and other users helped us contribute to
MathML2. 
We were especially delighted by the strong attendance at the MathML
conference we hosted in Champaign, IL in the summer of 2000. The
diversity
of people interested in MathML indicates a bright future for this
standard.
-- Theodore Gray, Member, Executive Committee, Wolfram Research, Inc.

-- 

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Michelle Curry
MIT/LCS NE43-342
200 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA

voice: +1.617.252.1186
fax:   +1.617.258.5999 
http://www.w3.org/
mcurry@w3.org

Received on Wednesday, 21 February 2001 13:55:06 UTC