Hi Ralf,

Thank you! I did not know that wiki page exists. I am familiar with

http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org/SandBoxNoncommutativePolynomials

It would be great if the articles in the wiki were organized in
categories (which is the most natural thing for FriCAS wiki!). Then it
would be easy to find all articles related to noncommutative
polynomials.

Actually, the operators that I want are very similar to sin(x). I took a
look at elemntry.spad and I defined my own operator, just like sin, in
myop.spad, compiled it, exposed it and when I tried to use it, FriCAS
said that there is no such operator.

How should I do it?

> If you tend to use expressions and maybe the "rule" and "ruleSet"
> facilities, then I would claim that you use FriCAS just as a symbolic
> manipulator

Agreed. Reading the FriCAS book I have come to realize that there is a
difference between symbolic manipulation and computer algebra. I have
some experience doing what you said with Maxima and it is very awkward.

One of the first things I did with FriCAS was this:

sum(k,k=1..n)
 
n² + n
------
   2

sum(k,k=1..n) :: Fraction Factored Polynomial Integer

n(n + 1)
--------
   2

This shows the elegance and power of mathematics! Unfortunately, the way
mathematics is taught and used by many physicists amounts to just doing
symbolic manipulations, which makes it very hard to understand for both
students attending their lectures and peers reading their papers.

Moreover, the above type conversion affords the separation between
declarative and imperative that is so little appreciated by scientists
and programmers alike. The type conveys the information necessary to
understand what happens to the first expression while hiding how it is done.

> You must change your mindset away from just expression tree
> manipulation. The right way for FriCAS is to think about what the
> algebraic structure of your operator algebra is and then program a
> domain for it.

That is precisely my goal :) In recent years I have given some thought
to the design of a CAS and I am beginning to realize that what I want to
do comes very close to FriCAS. At some point I want to start writing
packages and share them with colleagues. I believe the TeXmacs+FriCAS
combo can become a huge time-saver.

Thanks for the pointers to the Lie algebra-related domains. I had looked
at them and got the impression they are more matrix-oriented than
symbolic-oriented.

Marduk

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