The program Sage http://sagemath.org/ mentioned in the article uses Python extensively, but with a few changes when used interactively. In particular, all floating point literals are created as Python objects that wrap MPFR C-library objects http://www.mpfr.org/ which have better semantics. In particular, your example above in Sage becomes:
sage: 1.00 - 0.01 0.990000000000000
Likewise, in Python one has the confusing (to a mathematician):
>>> 1/3 0
In Sage integer literals wrap GMP integers http://gmplib.org/ (which are vastly faster than Python's large integers), and one has:
> Also the number of people who are able to contribute > significantly to such project is very limited.
There are enough people available, but it takes significant work to find and organize them. During the last two years over 40 people have contributed significantly to SAGE http://www.sagemath.org/, which is a GPL'd mathematics software package that combines Maxima, Python, GAP, PARI, and other systems with lots of new code and interfaces to Mathematica, Maple, MATLAB, etc. Also, SAGE has a modern web-browser based GUI.
> This is > on the border of several areas - pure abstract mathematics, > computer science and engineering. How many qualified LISP > programmers you can find nearby? How many of them are also
You point to one of the problems. That's one reason much of SAGE is in Python; the barrier to entry is much lower. Also, with SAGE we've done a huge amount of work to make it easy to transition code from Python to compiled C code (via Pyrex and SageX).
I'm a professional mathematician, I was an assistant professor of math at Harvard 2000-20005, and I know Yau from many discussions about research with him then. I've read both the New Yorker article and Yau's (lawyer's) letter. I think the New Yorker article is a typical example of sensationalist journalism; moreover it harms mathematics research by misunderstanding and misrepresenting mathematics culture on many levels.
The New Yorker article left me with a very bad feeling that it simply wasn't right, was completely unfair, and that it didn't at all describe the person I know. In contrast, the letter from Yau is consistent with what I know.
That Yau, his co-workers (and others) stepped up to write complete details of a proof of the Poincaire conjecture is good for mankind and good for mathematics. The article makes their work out to be some sort of power grab; they did *extremeley* hard work that very few people in the world are capable of, and which will be appreciated by numerous mathematicians and student.
Something similar happened to me recently with my Macbook Pro. The cable right by the magnetic connector suddenly became very brown. The connector smelled funny, and when I touched it to remove it, it burned my fingers and shocked me. I promptly unplugged the adapter from the wall. The next day I took my computer to the university of washington bookstore where I purchased it, and they promptly exchanged my power supply for a new one.
The power supply connector failed because I was wrapping and wrapping the cable each time I used it, and the twisting caused the connector to short out. My previous laptops have been Thinkpads, which have much higher quality more industry grade cables, so I wasn't used to being very careful with the adapter. The mac adapter is nice because the cable is smaller and lighter, but it is also correspondingly *vastly* more delicate.
One can write extensions in Pyrex, which is a language that is very similar to Python. Pyrex code is converted to C, which is ccompiled into an extension to Python. One can also access any C libraries from Pyrex.
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The program Sage http://sagemath.org/ mentioned in the article uses Python extensively, but with a few changes when used interactively. In particular, all floating point literals are created as Python objects that wrap MPFR C-library objects http://www.mpfr.org/ which have better semantics. In particular, your example above in Sage becomes:
sage: 1.00 - 0.01
0.990000000000000
Likewise, in Python one has the confusing (to a mathematician):
>>> 1/3
0
In Sage integer literals wrap GMP integers http://gmplib.org/ (which are vastly faster than Python's large integers), and one has:
sage: 1/3
1/3
-- William, http://wstein.org/ (author of the article being discussed)
> Also the number of people who are able to contribute
> significantly to such project is very limited.
There are enough people available, but it takes significant work to find and organize them. During the last two years over 40 people have contributed significantly to SAGE http://www.sagemath.org/, which is a GPL'd mathematics software package that combines Maxima, Python, GAP, PARI, and other systems with lots of new code and interfaces to Mathematica, Maple, MATLAB, etc. Also, SAGE has a modern web-browser based GUI.
> This is
> on the border of several areas - pure abstract mathematics,
> computer science and engineering. How many qualified LISP
> programmers you can find nearby? How many of them are also
You point to one of the problems. That's one reason much of SAGE is in Python; the barrier to entry is much lower. Also, with SAGE we've done a huge amount of work to make it easy to transition code from Python to compiled C code (via Pyrex and SageX).
I also just sent him a hosting offer. And, I'm a professor in the University
of Washington math department!
-- William
I'm a professional mathematician, I was an assistant professor of
math at Harvard 2000-20005, and I know Yau from many
discussions about research with him then. I've read both the
New Yorker article and Yau's (lawyer's) letter. I think the New Yorker
article is a typical example of sensationalist journalism; moreover it
harms mathematics research by misunderstanding and misrepresenting
mathematics culture on many levels.
The New Yorker article left me with a very bad feeling that it simply
wasn't right, was completely unfair, and that it didn't at all describe
the person I know. In contrast, the letter from Yau is consistent
with what I know.
That Yau, his co-workers (and others) stepped up to write complete
details of a proof of the Poincaire conjecture is good for mankind and
good for mathematics. The article makes their work out to be some
sort of power grab; they did *extremeley* hard work
that very few people in the world are capable of, and which will be
appreciated by numerous mathematicians and student.
-- William; http://sage.math.washington.edu/
Something similar happened to me recently with my Macbook Pro.
The cable right by the magnetic connector suddenly became very
brown. The connector smelled funny, and when I touched it to
remove it, it burned my fingers and shocked me. I promptly
unplugged the adapter from the wall. The next day I took my
computer to the university of washington bookstore where I
purchased it, and they promptly exchanged my power supply
for a new one.
The power supply connector failed because I was wrapping and
wrapping the cable each time I used it, and the twisting caused
the connector to short out. My previous laptops have been
Thinkpads, which have much higher quality more industry grade
cables, so I wasn't used to being very careful with the adapter.
The mac adapter is nice because the cable is smaller
and lighter, but it is also correspondingly *vastly* more delicate.
-- William
One can write extensions in Pyrex, which is a language that is very similar to Python. Pyrex code is converted to C, which is ccompiled into an extension to Python. One can also access any C libraries from Pyrex.