Strange Mathjax formatting with special characters right next to numbers

[mstachowsky]

If we write a dollar sign right next to a number, such as $5 = x$, this is supposed to be valid Mathjax syntax but it gets parsed into odd characters. I suspect it has something to do with an underlying issue in how we escape and handle the backslash. This does not happen with any other symbols, and it only happens on the first dollar sign, so $x = 5$ is fine. If we add a space, as in $ x = 5$ the issue also goes away.

[mstachowsky]

This behaviour also happens with square brackets, so $x \in [0, 1]$ formats the [0 into a strange character

[mstachowsky]

Update: I think I understand what is going on. The string starting with [ is used to parse links and other things in the markdown. The function that looks for that (openSquareBracketCheck, and possibly others) in parseToJSON.py does not account for such special characters inside of a MathJax string.