[Axiom-developer] Axiom + High Energy Physics

[C Y]

--- Bob McElrath <address@hidden> wrote:

> C Y address@hidden wrote:
> > Of course the best way to proceed is to document the ideas and
> > implement them as part of Axiom, but until then it might be nice to
> > be able to interface with the outside world.  Sucking in things 
> > like the cernlibs is not for the faint of heart ;-).
> 
> Uh...I know this is probably a joke, but...as a daily user of
> cernlib... the functionality of cernlib has no intersection with 
> axiom.

Really?  I thought they at least had some numerical routines that could
be of interest?
http://wwwasdoc.web.cern.ch/wwwasdoc/cernlib.html

I don't use it though, so I may be wrong.  I was just thinking CAS+High
Energy Physics tasks might be a good match, but I readily admit I don't
know cernlib all that well.

> *I* can imagine wanting to interface the two.  But I wouldn't want to
> inflict that can of worms on anyone else.

Heh - I guess it's from my own undergraduate physics background, but I
tend to focus on CAS usage as it relates to physics.  Cernlibs
naturally lept to mind when thinking about large, complex packages ;-).

Feyncalc would probably be my first target once the basic abilities for
physical science packages have been implemented (units, dimensions, and
error analysis) since that's a Mathematica package and already part of
a CAS environment (plus I know my own old department used it).  We
discussed the possibility on the list a while back - I think it would
be really neat to try implementing Feyncalc in Axiom, and I have a
feeling it would appeal to a lot of High Energy Physics departments who
want to run Feyncalc but have no $$ for Mathematica.  The problem is I
don't know if anyone would use it even if I did implement it - I'm not
part of the high energy physics community so it's dubious whether
people would trust it enough to want to use it - they might prefer to
stick to Mathematica.

Anyway, the attempt would be both educational and interesting, and
might provide enough momentum for some grad student to pick it up and
make it robust in the eyes of the physics community.  (Assuming the
availability of both funding and an advisor interested in that, of
course.) I'm sort of hoping Axiom might someday become the tool of
choice for theoretical physics - the mathematical backbone seems to be
there and physics departments are often looking to save the $$ required
for things like 20 copies of Mathematica for student labs.

Oh well, that's for the future if at all.  Back to dimensional
analysis...

Cheers,
CY


        
                
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