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What Might “Understand a Function” Mean?

  • Conference paper
Towards Mechanized Mathematical Assistants (MKM 2007, Calculemus 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4573))

Abstract

Many functions in classical mathematics are largely defined in terms of their derivatives, so Bessel’s function is “the” solution of Bessel’s equation, etc. For definiteness, we need to add other properties, such as initial values, branch cuts, etc. What actually makes up “the definition” of a function in computer algebra? The answer turns out to be a combination of arithmetic and analytic properties.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, England

    James H. Davenport

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  1. James H. Davenport
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Manuel Kauers Manfred Kerber Robert Miner Wolfgang Windsteiger

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© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Davenport, J.H. (2007). What Might “Understand a Function” Mean?. In: Kauers, M., Kerber, M., Miner, R., Windsteiger, W. (eds) Towards Mechanized Mathematical Assistants. MKM Calculemus 2007 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4573. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73086-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73086-6_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-73083-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-73086-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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