Computing
1 July 1999 Version
This solid was drawn by Mathematica: inputs were the
three-space coordinates of its corners, found by analytic geometry.
Computer science knowledge: data structures, lists; was
needed to work with Mathematica. Stephen Wolfram, Mathematica
originator, began creating it at California Institute of Technology: it
is subtitled "A System for Doing Mathematics by Computer."
An early mathematically-oriented interpretive computer language APL was
begun as a Ph.D. dissertation by Kenneth Iverson. Improvements and additions to
APL that Wolfram needed became Mathematica. APL language
ideas appear in Iverson's paper "Notation as a Tool of Thought," Aug. 1980 Communications of the ACM.
Other special computing tools include gp. A UCLA Mathematics
professor wrote "gp is part of pari-gp which is a number theory
package developed originally by Henri Cohen and others of Bordeaux, France.
It is in wide use by computational number theorists. You can get it from
http://hasse.mathematik.tu-muenchen.de/ntsw/pari/ "
To view gp please click here. There are many mathematical tools available on
the world wide web, e.g., Factoris an online factoring program by Xiao Gang.