University of Washington - A former assistant professor from Harvard, now at UofW, Dr. William Stein, and several students, have created a new open-source complex math solving tool called Sage.  It is an Internet-based graphical tool which allows the user to do basically anything mathematically, from "mapping a 12-dimensional object to calculating rainfall patterns under global warming."


Frustrated
Stein began working on the project after spending the better part of a decade frustrated by commercial software.  While the software worked he found a couple limiting factors.  First and foremost, they are closed source entities.  Any mathematician using commercial software would have no way of finding out how the machine arrived at the particular result.  And second, there are large licensing fees for the major commercial programs, like Matlab, Maple, Mathematica and Magma.


Development time
Stein spent the better part of a year and a half developing the prototype.  After that, some students jumped on board and began helping him.  Initially he assembled the bulk of Sage with free, open-source algorithms which were well-known and documented, while he filled in the gaps with the parts that were missing.  Presently, the entire project is open-source and anyone can obtain a copy, compile it and run it on any machine they like.


Inputting a command like this:

  



Yields a results page like this:

  
  
 
Sage Days
Stein has put together regular meetings in support of the ongoing development of Sage, called "Sage Days".  He says, "I think we can be better than the commercial versions.  I really want it to be the best mathematical software in the world."

Sage can be downloaded for a test drive here.


Author's opinion
I remember using Mathematica and Maple when I was in college.  They were wonderful!  But, I never thought for one instant ever that I would be using a computer tool to provide any type of actual proof.  Everything I did on the computer, even back then in the early 1990s, was done entirely for one purpose:  quick and dirty testing.  As a Physics/Math major, I still had to go through the rigors of doing everything long-hand.  It is for this reason I don't really see much validity in Stein's first point.  However, I definitely see the added value in being able to look at the software to see exactly how the numbers were arrived at.

I definitely see his point regarding cost.  Pirated copies of Maple were running rampant in the universities.  Had they been significantly less expensive, I think many more people would've bought them, and I think ultimately the companies would've made more money.  It's not always about charging what the market will bear.  It's often about charging what the mass market is willing to pay you so that you receive the maximum return.  Don't believe me?  Just ask a company called Javelin regarding their spreadsheet software that greatly exceeded Lotus 1-2-3's abilities, long before Lotus came around.  It was the expense that keeps us all from using ".jav" spreadsheet file extensions today.

You're right Rick, software piracy is a good thing

Dec 07, 2007 13:15     

I a lot of companies from the 80's and 90's are market leaders today because people were able to pirate their software from work and bring it home.
Calico Jack report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

confused at first

Dec 07, 2007 14:07     

The headline confused me since I was reading it through the Sage RSS feed reader. I was like, they went from RSS to complex mathematics?
erik report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

sage

Dec 07, 2007 14:58     

sage goes in every field
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piracy vs popularity

Dec 07, 2007 17:16     

Thats why photoshop has the market penetration that it does.
Skittle report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Exciting!

Dec 07, 2007 21:33     

I'm tired of pirating MATLAB and Mathematica. I've been anticipating an open-sourced rival, and finally we have one! Three cheers!
zipz0p report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

open-source

Dec 08, 2007 09:30     

Stein's open-source argument may have some validity here, if he is concerned with the accuracy of the algorithms. If the program is closed source, how can one be absolutely certain that the numbers are being crunched properly? On the other hand, he could be one of those wackos who think everything should be open-source because non-open-source software is the work of the devil/evil corporations/Nazis/terrorists.

Andrew report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

illegal software on campus is good

Dec 08, 2007 09:44     

I and all of my engineering student friends had illegal copies of Matlab and MathCAD. And guess what. When I got to my first job they wanted to know what software tools I needed to do my job. Consequently they bought multiple seats of Matlab and MathCAD. In the end, I think the software companies overlook the "on campus" grey market software for 2 reasons. 1, the students are not making any money from the software, just solving there homework problems. 2, since the students now know the software, the companies that hire them will be more inclined to invest in those software packages as the cost of retraining the engineer will far exceed the cost of just buying a software package.

bry report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Systems of ODE's

Dec 09, 2007 05:26     

I don't know if this software can provide numerical solutions to systems of ODE's, it sounds like it will have much the same functionality as matlab or mathematica, I haven't tried it out. But try solving an n-body problem analytically and you will learn to love numerics.
Brett report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

*sigh* no value on open source? what a joke Rick

Dec 09, 2007 06:19     

you definetly don't have a clue how scientific analysis is done. Simulations and number crunching can yield unexpected results. When you are talking about new techniques or very complex calculatiosn it is extremely important to know every bit of detail. Even a rounding error can mess everything up. I guess you never worked on a PhD on a physics or math related area. Then you would know
crazyhippo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

sage

Dec 09, 2007 20:53     

sage goes in every field
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Charging what the market will bare

Dec 09, 2007 21:45     

Maximum return is "what the market will bare". Those firms made a conscious choice that the decreased revenue per copy would not "pay for itself". We can always argue that they were wrong. But someone might come along and ask us to prove it.
rich report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0