Computer input/output of mathematical expressions

  • Authors:

  • William A. Martin

  • Affiliations:

  • -

  • Venue:
  • SYMSAC '71 Proceedings of the second ACM symposium on Symbolic and algebraic manipulation
  • Year:
  • 1971

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Studying mathematics is, in part, a language problem. Naturally, mathematicians are more likely to resist using a computer as a tool in their work if the tedious task of learning a new language for mathematics is part of the bargain. Furthermore, until a new language is thoroughly learned, difficulty in communication will make it less likely that their new experience will be a successful one. Beyond that, if a new computer language does not provide the same visual clues as standard mathematical notation, it may never adequately serve the mathematician. It therefore seems fair to assume that the computer input/output of mathematical expressions in a form resembling standard notation is an important goal. This form of expression is considerably more complex and expensive to handle than those used in, for example, the programming language FORTRAN. But the alternative (e.g., correctly manipulating a one page FORTRAN expression) is often quite painful.