Mathematical notation is two dimensional and cannot be easily typed with a standard QWERTY keyboard. In order to have an efficient math-aware search system that is capable of locating mathematical expressions and formulas, users should be able to form their queries with the most intuitive and ...
STIX stands for "Scientific and Technical Information Exchange". The STIX fonts are meant to handle a full range of mathematical symbols. You don't have to download them to use ASCIIMathML, but they do fix a few problems. (Go here to find out more aboutMathML and Firefoxand to download...