I was under the very vague impression that computer algebra systems a
la Maple, Mathematica etc. were so-called because they started out
emphasizing algebraic and symbolic manipulation, and so came out of
the so-called "computer algebra" community, as opposed to systems that
started out relying more on numerical and floating point calculation
like Matlab or MathCAD.
My less vague understanding is that those groups tend to mingle a lot
more now ("symbolic numerics" etc.) than they used to.
It seems that Wikipedia agrees:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_algebra_system#History
but for all I know I'm reading my own understanding into what they
wrote. I would be happy to be corrected.
regards
john perry
On May 16, 1:42 pm, William Stein <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Chris Seberino <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Sage does calculus and geometry calculations so I don't understand why
> > the term "Computer Algebra System" is so prevalent.
>
> Neither do I. I have also always wondered why that term is used. I
> much prefer the term "mathematics software". That's why the
> description of Sage on the main page is "Sage is a free open-source
> mathematics software system licensed under the GPL. "
>
> - William
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support
URLs: http://www.sagemath.org
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
