I didn't see any mention in this thread that the article has been posted on Slashdot! http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/18/1341232
On Nov 18, 2007 2:53 PM, William Stein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Nov 18, 2007 3:49 PM, root <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > One possible other source for funding is NIST (although the year that > > I thought to apply they only had funding for prior project, no new > > money available). > > > > An outstanding problem is that we have many different computer algebra > > and symbolic computation systems that compute different answers to the > > same problem. Sometimes these answers are equivalent but it takes a > > great deal of work to show that. > > > > I've advocated, and done some work on, CATS (computer algebra test > > suite). The idea is to categorize (similar to the NIST numeric math > > classification) and standardize a set of symbolic problems and their > > mathematical solutions. These problems would be chosen to highlight > > behavior (e.g. branch cuts, simplifications, boundary conditions) in a > > class of problems. Each system could then provide solutions to this > > standard set. Thus there would be the beginnings of the idea that you > > could expect the same results (within simplification) on any of the > > available systems. In the ideal case such tests would also document > > the algorithm(s) that solves the problem. > > > > NIST seems to me to be the ideal funding source for such a suite. > > > > Note that the test suite is applicable to both open source and > > commercial efforts. > > > > In particular, since SAGE has many daughter systems it seems that > > you are in the ideal position to build a catalog of such tests. > > The test problems would all provide hand-solved answers as well > > as the results from each daughter subsystem. > > > > Further, since each area of classification would require an expert > > to propose and document the problems it seems to be the ideal > > project for widespread grant-based funding. > > > > The end result would be an Abramowitz & Stegun style document that > > was machine readable and freely available. Each project (e.g. MMA, > > Maple, Axiom, etc) would post their results. > > Actually NIST already has been working on an " Abramowitz & Stegun > style document " > for the last decade. I had a long talk on Friday in my office with the > guy who started that effort a decade ago... It's actually very exciting, > and I do think there is some possibility for something like you're describing > above, maybe more in the context of the CDI initiative at NSF. > > > William > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
