Symbolic mathematical computation: a survey

  • Authors:
  • James H. Griesmer

  • Affiliations:
  • IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGSAM Bulletin
  • Year:
  • 1976

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Abstract

The impact of high-speed computers on the scientific community over the past 25 years has been well documented. Their successful use for numerical computations in a number of areas of engineering and the sciences was followed by an interest in their being employed for 'literal' or symbolic computations. Problems in celestial mechanics, mathematics, and theoretical physics already pointed to the desirability of having such a capability. A number of systems for symbolic computation began to appear in the early 1960's. By 1965, sufficient interest in this area had developed to warrant the formation by the Association for Computing Machinery of the ACM Special Interest Group on Symbolic and Algebraic Manipulation (SIGSAM). During the next ten years, the field exhibited considerable growth as some of these early systems were revised, additional systems were introduced, and new symbolic capabilities were implemented. This has led to an ever-increasing use of symbolic computation on a wide variety of applications.