--- Bob McElrath <bob+maxima@mcelrath.org> wrote:
> The *purpose* of FeynCalc is to be a general purpose framework
> for doing quantum field theory calculations. That is, dirac
> matrices, trace rules, Feynman rules from Lagrangians,
> representations for fields and the like.
This brings up an interesting point. Much of the discussion so far has
been on how to incorporate new knowledge into Axiom/etc as it is
discovered/created, but for a lot of uses the PRACTICAL value of a CAS
is doing repeated calculations within a subset of mathematics.
Modeling physical systems, for example, most likely allows one to make
some assumptions that a general purpose CAS wouldn't or shouldn't make.
If Axiom is to be useful to people in a field outside pure mathematical
research (such as high energy physics) there should be a way for them
to have a HighEnergyPhysics.pamphlet file or some such that immediately
lets Axiom know about the standard assumptions in the field. That way,
anyone wanting to write a paper using Axiom in the HighEnergyPhysics
field could simply load that file and have a mathematical environment
corresponding to the one they use to do their work. I guess Feyncalc
in a sense is such a tool for Mathematica, but given the strictness of
Axiom's environment I wouldn't be surprised if Feyncalc itself might
benefit from a more general definition file.
> The actual algorithms are straightforward, but very tedious to
> calculate, so thus the results are collected into libraries like
> FeynCalc.
Perhaps it would be useful to make the distinction between mathematical
research using a CAS and the CAS as a scientific tool. Axiom clearly
wants to be a mathematical research level CAS - does it make sense to
add abilities which are mostly practical in nature? I.e., would Axiom
want to be the place to do quick calculations for a physics paper, as
well as an environment to interact with high level mathematical
research? I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but I'm
thinking there does need to be a way for the casual user to be isolated
from advanced mathematical issues and define a more confined working
environment.
CY
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