Re: wikipedia's (ascii) math notation? emacs easy-way to translate it?

[Paul R <paul.r.ml@gmail.com>]

Xah> Mathematica is a order of magnitude better because its typesetting
Xah> system not only passively show math formulas as a pretty printing
Xah> system, but the markup syntax is also semantically meaningful. (for
Xah> example, when you type set x^2/x^3, it actually knows that it is
Xah> x^(2/3) and you can have it automatically simplify the expression
Xah> or computer numerical values).

Are we really talking about a typesetting system here ? I would not say
MS Paint is an order of magnitude better than emacs because you can draw
with pixel while in emacs you still have to draw in old ascii art.

Maxima, for exemple, being a symbolic expressions processor, will let
you work with symbolic expressions and provide export to latex formulas.
I have been using happily mixed session of auctex and maxima in the past
for scientific presentations. I guess imaxima has improved a lot since
and can provide most of what you will need nowaday. 

-- 
  Paul