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Symbolica Computer Algebra System

symbolica.io

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Re: Symbolica Computer Algebra System

#51

Post by auggierose »

aardvark179 wrote: post #26
SPACECADET3D wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author of Symbolica here: for your personal projects the cost is 0, as you'd be a hobbyist. Symbolica is developed by only one person, so forgive me if I can't get every aspect of the project right on the first try (especially the non-technical part) :) I will see about removing the online on start-up part. It's essentially the only anti-piracy step that I have. At the moment there is no fixed cost for use in industr…

Give people a ballpark single user price, and a note that discounts can be given for multiple users etc. If you don’t quote any price the assumption will be, “if you have to ask you can’t afford it.”

That's probably how it is. Given that he sells only academic licenses, if he sells 3 site licenses for €6000 each, that's a salary (a low one, but you can actually live from it).

If he advertises a single-user license for €200, let's say, then each site has to have at least 30 users to make the same kind of money. Unlikely each current site has that many users, so it doesn't make sense to offer single-user licenses if there is the danger that sites will jump to that.

Re: Symbolica Computer Algebra System

#52

Post by glimshe »

SPACECADET3D wrote: post #36
data_maan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Could you share the equation/code you worked on? I can't imagine a mathematical object being 84KB long, that's insanely huge

Author of Symbolica here: Symbolica is used in physics calculations to do arithmetic on rational polynomials that are hundreds of megabytes long. For my physics research I have worked with expressions that was just shy of a terabyte long and had > 100M terms. The way that works is that you stream terms from disk, perform manipulations on them and write them to disk again. Using a mergesort, terms that add up can be i…

This is fascinating. What is the real-world application of these polynomials? I mean, what technical-scientific problems can only be solved with such large objects? I love the thought of "if I don't solve this enormous polynomial, this solar panel won't have very good efficiency" or something like that.

Re: Symbolica Computer Algebra System

#54

Post by T-A »

data_maan wrote: post #33
gremgoth wrote: post #4

Name shared with https://www.symbolica.ai , a Vinod Khosla-backed start up.

I was a t first also confused about this and thought they were the same. (Not sure though why you mention this Khosla guy, should I even know him?)

> this Khosla guy, should I even know him?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Khosla

Re: Symbolica Computer Algebra System

#55

Post by SPACECADET3D »

vindex10 wrote: post #53

The idea reminds me of FORM, popular in Particle physics community: https://github.com/vermaseren/form http://www.nikhef.nl/~form/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FORM_(symbolic_manipulation_sy...

I've actually been a developer of FORM since my PhD (which I did with the author of FORM, Jos Vermaseren)! In Symbolica, I am taking the best features of FORM, while making it easier to use.

Re: Symbolica Computer Algebra System

#57

Post by SPACECADET3D »

glimshe wrote: post #52
SPACECADET3D wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author of Symbolica here: Symbolica is used in physics calculations to do arithmetic on rational polynomials that are hundreds of megabytes long. For my physics research I have worked with expressions that was just shy of a terabyte long and had > 100M terms. The way that works is that you stream terms from disk, perform manipulations on them and write them to disk again. Using a mergesort, terms that add up can be i…

This is fascinating. What is the real-world application of these polynomials? I mean, what technical-scientific problems can only be solved with such large objects? I love the thought of "if I don't solve this enormous polynomial, this solar panel won't have very good efficiency" or something like that.

These polynomials appear when computing Feynman diagrams, which are used to make predictions for the Large Hadron Collider. The collider can measure collisions with such astonishing precision (The large polynomials appear in the middle of the computation, often referred to as intermediate expression swell. This also happens when you do a Gaussian elimination or compute greatest common divisors: the final result will be small, but intermediately, the expressions can get large.

Re: Symbolica Computer Algebra System

#58

Post by tempodox »

> In the case of halted development, existing and new users can buy a perpetual license for the most recent version.

Promises, promises. I don't doubt the author's intentions, but then later the owner(s) get bought out and the new owner doesn't honor that promise. We've seen this kind of stuff way too often in the past.

Re: Symbolica Computer Algebra System

#59

Post by vindex10 »

SPACECADET3D wrote: post #55
vindex10 wrote: post #53

The idea reminds me of FORM, popular in Particle physics community: https://github.com/vermaseren/form http://www.nikhef.nl/~form/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FORM_(symbolic_manipulation_sy...

I've actually been a developer of FORM since my PhD (which I did with the author of FORM, Jos Vermaseren)! In Symbolica, I am taking the best features of FORM, while making it easier to use.

Exciting! I've never been an active user, but I always appreciated it as a core tool in QFT calculations.

I even created a simple tool for squaring matrix elements based on FORM:

https://github.com/vindex10/form-square

Thank you for staying creative, for thinking big and expanding beyond HEP :)

Re: Symbolica Computer Algebra System

#60

Post by [deleted] »

tempodox wrote: post #58

> In the case of halted development, existing and new users can buy a perpetual license for the most recent version. Promises, promises. I don't doubt the author's intentions, but then later the owner(s) get bought out and the new owner doesn't honor that promise. We've seen this kind of stuff way too often in the past.

[deleted]
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