XML ensures portability of data similar to Java, which ensures portability of code.

XML removes two constraints which were holding back Web developments:
1. dependence on a single, inflexible document type (HTML) which was being much abused for tasks it was never designed for;
2. the complexity of full SGML, whose syntax allows many powerful but hard-to-program options.
XML allows the flexible development of user-defined document types. It provides a robust, non-proprietary, persistent, and verifiable file format for the storage and transmission of text and data both on and off the Web; and it removes the more complex options of SGML, making it easier to program for.

To "undeclare" the default XML namespace, you declare a default XML namespace with an empty (zero-length) name (URI). Within the scope of this declaration, unprefixed element type names do not belong to any XML namespace.

No. This is done in the document's Document Type Declaration, not in the DTD.

   A markup language is a set of words and symbols for describing the identity of pieces of a document. Programs can use this with a stylesheet to create output for screen, print, audio, video, Braille, etc.

Yes, if the document type you use provides for math, and your users' browsers are capable of rendering it. The mathematics-using community has developed the MathML Recommendation at the W3C, which is a native XML application suitable for embedding in other DTDs and Schemas.