Symbolic integration: the stormy decade

  • Authors:
  • Joel Moses

  • Affiliations:
  • Project MAC, MIT, Cambridge, MA

  • Venue:
  • Communications of the ACM
  • Year:
  • 1971

Quantified Score

Hi-index 48.24

Visualization

Abstract

Three approaches to symbolic integration in the 1960's are described. The first, from artificial intelligence, led to Slagle's SAINT and to a large degree to Moses' SIN. The second, from algebraic manipulation, led to Manove's implementation and to Horowitz' and Tobey's reexamination of the Hermite algorithm for integrating rational functions. The third, from mathematics, led to Richardson's proof of the unsolvability of the problem for a class of functions and for Risch's decision procedure for the elementary functions. Generalizations of Risch's algorithm to a class of special functions and programs for solving differential equations and for finding the definite integral are also described.