Superscripts in Google Documents

I am trying to put together an explanation of some elementary algebra, and I discovered Google Documents has an equation editor that allows you to use some of those fancy mathematical symbols. All I needed was some superscripts (to indicate raising a number to a power).

There is a point and click menu available (click on Insert in the menu bar) and it works, though it gets to be a little cumbersome if you have to use the same symbol more than once. Reading a little further I find that  the help page for mathematical equations claims that several special math symbols can be inserted in an equation by using special words that are prefaced with a backslash. For instance \superscript. I found one other post that claimed many of these LaTeX commands did not work. Fortunately, all I needed this time were superscripts, and they can be done by typing a caret (^) inside the equation box.

I wonder if Google is getting too big for their britches, you know, playing to the mass social networking market, and any kind of special requirements can just go hang. For instance the Search function on Blogger is probably broken again, for the umpteenth time. I have given up using it and now use the regular Google Search to locate stuff in my blog. It often returns multiple links to the same item, but at least it finds things, something Blogger does not seem to be able to do reliably.


P.S. LaTeX is some antique text formatting system that seems to still be in use in obscure, i.e. not "popular" corners of the universe.