
	A Guide to Computer Algebra Systems

Readers of this newsgroup may be interested to know about
a new book which provides a comparison between five of the
most popular computer algebra systems currently
available: MACSYMA, REDUCE, Maple, Mathematica and
Derive. The book is based upon annual reports produced by
the authors as part of the U.K. Computer Algebra Support
Project at the University of Liverpool, U.K., and it
borrows a number of valuable features from the reports:

* Tables which directly compare the capabilities of the
five systems, showing   "at a glance" whether a particular
system has the features that you need.

* Case studies which show how computer algebra systems
can be used to solve   real problems in math, science and
engineering.

* A comprehensive bibliography of books, papers and
articles on computer   algebra.

The book is entitled "A Guide to Computer Algebra
Systems"; it is written by David Harper, Chris Wooff and
David Hodgkinson and published by John Wiley and Sons.
The ISBN is 0-471-92910-7.

Anyone who would like more information about the book is
welcome to contact David Harper by email:
adh@@star.qmw.ac.uk

-- David Harper 

Astronomy Unit,             JANET:         adh@@uk.ac.qmw.star School
of
Math Sciences     INTERNET etc.: adh@@star.qmw.ac.uk QMW, U
of London, England   UUCP:


     	A Guide to COMPUTER ALGEBRA SYSTEMS
     

The book A Guide to COMPUTER ALGEBRA SYSTEMS by David Harper,
Chris Wooff and David Hodgkinson (John Wiley & Sons, 1991)
describes Maple, Macsyma, MuMath & Derive, AXIOM, REDUCE,
Mathematica & SMP.  This book includes comparison tables of
functionality for the user interface, basic algebra, calculus,
solving equations, matrices and linear algebra, I/O, and
documentation.  For integration and differential equations,
some specific examples and classes of examples are given
and compared, otherwise, there is no attempt to ``compare'' the
systems.  The facility is simply checked off if the system
has it, regardless of how sophisticated the implementation might be.

Michael Monagan

______________________________________________________________________________
M. Monagan (monagan@inf.ethz.ch) said that J. Grabmeier (grabm@dhdibm1.bitnet)
is preparing a document on a number of CA-systems and that Vol. 1, Heft 3
of the mathPAD newsletter (mathpadjournal@uni-paderborn.de) contains an
article on some 20 systems including SAC-2, MuPAD, FELIX.
______________________________________________________________________________
