>I do believe that computational mathematics needs to become a more >rigorous subject. In fact, I'd like to see a piece of code written by >Tim upholding the standards he is advocating, where someone has "taken >the time", because I would like to compare it to my own code and get >some ideas. > >However, I think that a vast number of mathematical papers are written >to a vastly lower standard than a lot of code. Much of what is >written, you really do need a fields medal to understand it and papers >are absolutely full of errors, omissions, handwaving, unchecked >assertions, statements which have come from the mouths of other people >but never formally proved, etc, etc. > >Just this morning I read a note in which an important new result was >mentioned. There was no indication of who the result was due to, what >year they published it, or any other clues. I eventually tracked down >another paper which mentioned it. But that paper also did not mention >the authors of the original result. I eventually established that it >was one or more of the authors of the very paper I was reading! They >couldn't even reference their own work properly. Not only that, it >appears to be an unpublished result, and may have been "proved" using >a computer. I did however manage to find out which month they >discovered their result, but this didn't help me recover the proof. > >On the up side, I also read a paper which was somewhat comprehensible, >where all the terms were defined, references were given for omitted >proofs (and they weren't in obscure papers in Russian) and the paper >was really doing something interesting which was not written down in a >textbook somewhere. I have to say though, that kind of paper is about >as rare as the code you are referring to.
The "canonical example" which is in-plan to write is based on the paper in src/doc/primesp.spad.pamphlet <http://github.com/daly/axiom/tree/master/src/doc/primesp.spad.pamphlet> I obtained permission from the authors to use this paper in Axiom as the basis for a canonical example. It is not yet complete and fully integrated into Axiom so I don't talk about it much but it is "in process". Tim --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
