LaTeX is a software system for typesetting documents that is extremely powerful and especially well-suited for mathematics. An overwhelming majority of research papers in science, math and engineering are composed using LaTeX.
A good place to start is The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX 2e. Even after you've used LaTeX for a while, this is still a handy reference. After getting warmed up with that, you will probably want to look through The LaTeX Companion, by Goossens et al. A copy is available in the lab.
Most of the basic math symbols are summarized in this short list of LaTeX symbols, but for more obscure symbols, you should look in The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List.