inamerrata

MathJax is pretty cool — it’s essentially a client-side JavaScript implementation of LaTeX, so you can write maths in ASCII, like “x^n + y^n = z^n”, surround it with dollar signs, and have it look like:

$$ x^n + y^n = z^n $$

And, of course, you can be more complicated if you like:

$$ C(\mathbf{q}) = b(\mathbf{q}) \log\left( \sum_i e^{\frac{q_i}{b(\mathbf{q})}} \right) $$

Inclusion in WordPress is easy: you unpack the MathJax beta on your website, add a “script” line so that the MathJax javascript is loaded, and it dynamically displays the maths when the page is loaded. It also manages to do it with real fonts, so you can select bits of the equations, and not have to deal with ugly images — oh, and it zooms nicely.

Of course, there’s a downside to having a client side script redisplay the formulas, and I suspect everyone reading via RSS will have already picked up on what it is…