History
Axiom has been in development since 1971. At that time, it was called
Scratchpad. Scratchpad was a large, general purpose computer algebra system
that was originally developed by IBM under the direction of Richard Jenks.
The project started in 1971 and evolved slowly. Barry Trager was key to the
technical direction of the project. Scratchpad developed over a 20 year
stretch and was basically considered as a research platform for developing
new ideas in computational mathematics. In the 1990s, as IBM's fortunes slid,
the Scratchpad project was renamed to Axiom, sold to the Numerical Algorithms
Group (NAG) in England and became a commercial system. As part of the
Scratchpad project at IBM in Yorktown Tim Daly worked on all aspects of the
system and eventually helped transfer the product to NAG. For a variety of
reasons it never became a financial success and NAG withdrew it from the
market in October, 2001.
Open Source
NAG agreed to release Axiom as free software, under this license.
The basic motivation was that
Axiom represents something different from other programs in a lot of
ways. Primarily because of its foundation in mathematics the Axiom system
will potentially be useful 30 years from now. In its current state it
represents about 30 years and 300 man-years of research work. To strive to
keep such a large collection of knowledge alive seems a worthwhile goal.
Development Emphasis
Efforts are underway to extend this software to:
- develop a better user interface
- make it useful as a teaching tool
- develop an algebra server protocol
- integrate additional mathematics
- rebuild the algebra in a Literate Programming style
- integrate logic programming
- develop an Axiom Journal with refereed submissions.
Try before you "Buy"
Axiom is free, however it is a large and fairly complex program
with a significant learning curve. Before you invest a lot of time
installing and configuring Axiom, why not try it right here first?
There are many examples and screenshots available for you to
review and you can try out Axiom online!
Currently Axiom exists in three versions or forks
The original open source Axiom project was started by Tim Daly
(http://daly.axiom-developer.org). The FriCAS fork was created by
Waldek Hebisch (http://www.math.uni.wroc.pl/~hebisch) and the
OpenAxiom fork was created by Gabriel Dos Reis
(http://parasol.tamu.edu/~gdr).
The version of Axiom that is used by default on this web site is
the FriCAS fork. It was built from source code on:
axiom
)version
Value = "Friday November 9, 2007 at 19:35:06 "
List of Contributors
The following is a fairly complete list of people who have contributed
to the development of Axiom over it's long history. If you know of anyone
who you think should be on this list but is not, please let us know. It is
our intention to update this list frequently.
Many of these people are still actively involved with Axiom. Some however
have already passed beyond these mortal concerns and we can only silently
thank them for this wonderful legacy!
axiom
)credits
An alphabetical listing of contributors to AXIOM (to October, 2006):
Cyril Alberga Roy Adler Christian Aistleitner
Richard Anderson George Andrews
Henry Baker Stephen Balzac Yurij Baransky
David R. Barton Gerald Baumgartner Gilbert Baumslag
Fred Blair Vladimir Bondarenko Mark Botch
Alexandre Bouyer Peter A. Broadbery Martin Brock
Manuel Bronstein Florian Bundschuh Luanne Burns
William Burge
Quentin Carpent Robert Caviness Bruce Char
Cheekai Chin David V. Chudnovsky Gregory V. Chudnovsky
Josh Cohen Christophe Conil Don Coppersmith
George Corliss Robert Corless Gary Cornell
Meino Cramer Claire Di Crescenzo
Timothy Daly Sr. Timothy Daly Jr. James H. Davenport
Jean Della Dora Gabriel Dos Reis Michael Dewar
Claire DiCrescendo Sam Dooley Lionel Ducos
Martin Dunstan Brian Dupee Dominique Duval
Robert Edwards Heow Eide-Goodman Lars Erickson
Richard Fateman Bertfried Fauser Stuart Feldman
Brian Ford Albrecht Fortenbacher George Frances
Constantine Frangos Timothy Freeman Korrinn Fu
Marc Gaetano Rudiger Gebauer Kathy Gerber
Patricia Gianni Holger Gollan Teresa Gomez-Diaz
Laureano Gonzalez-Vega Stephen Gortler Johannes Grabmeier
Matt Grayson James Griesmer Vladimir Grinberg
Oswald Gschnitzer Jocelyn Guidry
Steve Hague Vilya Harvey Satoshi Hamaguchi
Martin Hassner Waldek Hebisch Ralf Hemmecke
Henderson Antoine Hersen
Pietro Iglio
Richard Jenks
Kai Kaminski Grant Keady Tony Kennedy
Paul Kosinski Klaus Kusche Bernhard Kutzler
Larry Lambe Frederic Lehobey Michel Levaud
Howard Levy Rudiger Loos Michael Lucks
Richard Luczak
Camm Maguire Bob McElrath Michael McGettrick
Ian Meikle David Mentre Victor S. Miller
Gerard Milmeister Mohammed Mobarak H. Michael Moeller
Michael Monagan Marc Moreno-Maza Scott Morrison
Mark Murray
William Naylor C. Andrew Neff John Nelder
Godfrey Nolan Arthur Norman Jinzhong Niu
Michael O'Connor Kostas Oikonomou
Julian A. Padget Bill Page Susan Pelzel
Michel Petitot Didier Pinchon Jose Alfredo Portes
Claude Quitte
Norman Ramsey Michael Richardson Renaud Rioboo
Jean Rivlin Nicolas Robidoux Simon Robinson
Michael Rothstein Martin Rubey
Philip Santas Alfred Scheerhorn William Schelter
Gerhard Schneider Martin Schoenert Marshall Schor
Frithjof Schulze Fritz Schwarz Nick Simicich
William Sit Elena Smirnova Jonathan Steinbach
Christine Sundaresan Robert Sutor Moss E. Sweedler
Eugene Surowitz
James Thatcher Balbir Thomas Mike Thomas
Dylan Thurston Barry Trager Themos T. Tsikas
Gregory Vanuxem
Bernhard Wall Stephen Watt Jaap Weel
Juergen Weiss M. Weller Mark Wegman
James Wen Thorsten Werther Michael Wester
John M. Wiley Berhard Will Clifton J. Williamson
Stephen Wilson Shmuel Winograd Robert Wisbauer
Sandra Wityak Waldemar Wiwianka Knut Wolf
Clifford Yapp David Yun
Richard Zippel Evelyn Zoernack Bruno Zuercher
Dan Zwillinger