Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: AMS Notices: Open Source Mathematical Software

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

On Wed, 28 Nov 2007, Michel Lavaud wrote:

| Gabriel Dos Reis a écrit :
| > Michel Lavaud <address@hidden> writes:
| >
| >
| > [...]
| >
| > | > | This trend is especially common among experimental scientists, for two
| > | > | reasons
| > | > | : first, they have lot of money so they can buy very expensive
| > | > | : software, and
| > | > | second, there is an inherent uncertainty in experimental results, so
| > | > | they
| > | > | translate their tolerance to errors in experimental results toward
| > | > | tolerance
| > | > | to possible errors in commercial software, without realizing (or
| > | > | wanting to
| > | > | realize) that errors in experiment and software are of a complete
| > | > | different
| > | > | nature : error in an experimental measure is unavoidable and inherent
| > | > | to
| > | > | experimental work, while error in a software is completely avoidable
| > | > | since it
| > | > | is pure mathematics, expressed in a computer language instead of plain
| > | > | English.
| > | >
| > | > That may be the case.  In the interest of rigor and openness as you
| > | > promote, do you have data for that scenario we could all check so that
| > | > it does not appear to be a gratuitous anecdote?
| > | >
| > | >
| > | Once again, I'm not sure I understand the question : which data would
| > | you like that "all could check" ?
| >
| > # [...] so they translate their tolerance to errors in experimental
| > # results toward tolerance to possible errors in commercial software
| >   
| Ah, OK. You meant gratuitous interpretation, I suppose ? 

Do you have factual data?  


-- Gaby