Subject: Maxima by Example: Ch. 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11
From: Stavros Macrakis
Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 13:57:02 -0400
On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 7:28 AM, Wolfgang Lindner <LindnerW at t-online.de>wrote:
> I remember that Gerald Jay Sussman and Jack Wisdom wrote the book
> "Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics".
> There is code (using Scheme ~ Lisp) parallel to the chapters of the book.
> I once dreamed to translate this into the language of a (free) CAS ..
> now Maxima seems to be a possible platform for such ideas.
>
The notation that Sussman + Wisdom used in that book was quite rigorous
about things like variable scope; this is very different from conventional
mathematical notation, which is quote sloppy and depends on the reader to
"fill in the blanks". See their
Preface<http://mitpress.mit.edu/SICM/book-Z-H-5.html>for some good
discussion and examples.
Maxima is more like conventional mathematical notation, with its advantages
and disadvantages.
-s