REDUCEing Calculus to Calculations A Survey of Co-Calculus Shibaji Banerjee

shibaji ban@yahoo.co.in

St. Xaviers College, Kolkata July 10, 2010 REDUCE is what?

Interactive system for general algebraic computations

It belongs to the same class as Mathematica / Maple, or Maxima, Axiom, Pari, Sympy (item1) Two very well known Commercial CA systems (item2) Open Source Variants; Note Task Specializations, Unix Toolchain tradition What REDUCE is not?

Reduce is not a what-not

One still needs to invest in at least two systems devoted to graphical analysis numerical analysis

The downside of it

Open source solutions: Freemat, Octave, Scilab, Python + Scipy + Matplotlib / Python + Scipy + Gnuplot.py . . . Reduce is not a all in one solution to every Physics problem under the Sun. Reduce aims at being part of a complete scientic environment rather than being the complete environment itself. WBSU Physics are using Python+Matplotlib (since they are completely open source based). The Upside Software Reduce Maxima Maple Mathematica

Ver 3.8 9.5 7.0

First Release 1963 1968 1980 1988

Size Details 15.2MB, 113 Files 4 folders 305MB, 986 Files, 79 Folders 1.44GB, 14,678 Files, 1,578 folders

Extremely portable, students can carry it in their pen drive and plug. Consume very few system resources, can even run with the virus scanner on and slowing things down or movies played alongside. Self respecting computation all the way, one can cite freely. Tabular details from self.system scan. 1080 citations found using grep \[ bib.txt | wc --l A bit of History Anthony C. Hearn started developing it while he was a postdoc in Theoretical Physics in Stanford, becoming increasingly frustrated with the prospect of calculations of Feynman diagrams by hand (Computation of algebraic properties of elementary particle reactions using a digital computer, Comm. ACM, 9(8):573-577, 1966) Status till 2008: Commercial - Open Source! (100 developers, numerous contributors) Status from 1st January 1, 2009: In Public domain Comment: 47 years is a long time for a piece of software to survive and stay in active development. The Best Part As users would testify, Maple is by and for Mathematicians, Mathematica is by a Physicist but intended for Mathematically minded computer scientists Reduce is built and maintained by and for Physicists and presents a no-nonsense (but slightly ideosyncratic) interface.

What does it look and feel like? Interactive Session: The syntax appears natural Good support for user level control (o exp,o revpri in lhospi, on div,revpri in exp1; weight x=1; wtlevel 10, on div,revpri; in exp2, same in binom) Variables are dynamic, rules can be dened Simple operations are easy. in "lhospi.red"; in "exp1.red;" in "exp2.red"; in "binom.red"; in "mathinduct.red" (optional) load "package algint"; load_package "defint"; int(sin(x)/x,x,0,infinity); for all x,y sin(x)*cos(y)=1/2*(sin(x+y)+sin(x-y); sin(3*x)*cos(y/2); plot(sin(x)/x); Multipole-potential Ingredients: The potential at a point r = (x, y, z ) relative to the center of the charge distribution, due to a unit charge placed at ra = (ax , ay , az ) U= = = 1 |ra r| 1
1/2

2 + r 2 2r r ) (ra a 1

r 1+ = 1 r 1+

2 ra r2

2ra r r2

1/2

2 2ra r ra r2 2 ra 2ra r 1 , 1/2 binom r r2 2 2 1 (x2 a + ya + za ) 2(xxa + yya + zza ) binom , 1/2 r r2

1/2

Multipole-potential Recipe: For any charge conguration, calculate the potential due to each charge and add up, expanding the potential to the appropriate order. Pedagogic Benits: The learner appreciates the usefulness of expansion up-to a certain order. The results are arrived at directly without encountering any special functions en-route. Without a CA system, this is typically doable only for the dipole! Most of the mystery associated with multipole expansions are dispelled at the rst strike, without the additional pressure to get the formidable algebra right at once. Conclusions CA techniques can unfold a lot of mathematical insight which remains traditionally buried under algebraic misdoings. Hand in hand with analysis, computational calculus can become a teaching / self-learning aid for accomplishing nontrivial calculations in a reasonable time.

Acknowledgements Anthony C. Hearn, for developing REDUCE A.G Grozin, V. Winkelmann, W.Hehl for enabling me to ddle with it. The Participants, for their patient attention. The organizers of RC18, for support.

Thank You!