On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 02:41:58PM +0100, Fabrizio Caruso wrote:
> Hi
>
> In the near future I could have
> one or two computer science students
...
> I could have them implement something
> in/for Maxima.
> Any suggestions?
> It should be something not too
> mathematically complicated.
How about a minimization routine that doesn't require computing
derivatives and would work for purely numerical/computational
functions, preferrably with constraints? Something out of Richard
Brent "Algorithms for Minimization Without Derivatives" perhaps? I
haven't read it but it's at least available cheaply and looks to be
understandable by Ugrad students.
Optimization is an extremely useful tool for all sorts of fields. I'm
extremely grateful for augmented_lagrangian_method from Robert Dodier,
but when the input is a numerical result (such as trying to minimize
some numerical integral) that sort of routine isn't usable.
maxima has some valuable tools which might make for a clever
optimization algorithm which could try local least squares fits, or
interpolation, or do smart things with constraints.
just a thought.
--
Daniel Lakeland
dlakelan at street-artists.org
http://www.street-artists.org/~dlakelan