Re: Algorithm Analysis Course: Should I use Mathematica for projects?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg127312] Re: Algorithm Analysis Course: Should I use Mathematica for projects?
- From: Richard Fateman <fateman at eecs.berkeley.edu>
- Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2012 04:29:47 -0400 (EDT)
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On 7/14/2012 11:44 AM, Andrzej Kozlowski wrote: > On 14 Jul 2012, at 20:10, Richard Fateman wrote: > >> You have a course on Mathematica? Do you also have a course on Python? On C? On Excel? on PHP? >> what kind of college is that? > No, only on Mathematica ;-) > > Actually it is a course on symbolic algebra algorithms such as GrobenerBasis, Cylindrical Algebraic Decomposition, Integrate etc. That makes more sense. Though the topic choice is probably tricky. For example, George Collins used to teach a sequence of courses that started with multiple-precision integer arithmetic. Maybe he got to polynomials in the second term. I assume exact rational arithmetic, but teach various ways of encoding polynomials, uses of the FFT, modular arithmetic, GCD. GB and CAD are mentioned in passing, though another course at Berkeley does more GB stuff. > But Mathematica is the only tool. I would hope that people taking such a course would also use pencil, paper, and brains. Given that Mathematica doesn't even seem to have a normal implementation of lists or hash tables it would seem to be a poor tool for discussing data structures for computer algebra. > We also have a yearly Mathematica project contest (with prizes from the Dean of Mathematics and the Dean of Computer Science). That sounds silly. > > > As for the university, it is the largest university in Central Europe and its computer science students just won the silver medal in the World Programming Championships ;-) Is there some reason you are trying to keep the name anonymous? I thought you were in Japan. >