A Gentle Introduction to NUMERICA

Abstract Numerica is a modeling language for stating and solving global optimization problems. It makes it possible to express these problems in a notation close to the way these problems are stated in textbooks or scientific papers. In addition, the constraint-solving algorithm of Numerica , which combines techniques from numerical analysis and artificial intelligence, provides many guarantees about correctness, convergence, and completeness. This paper is a gentle introduction to Numerica . It highlights some of the main difficulties of global optimization and illustrates the functionality of Numerica by contrasting it to traditional methods. It also presents the essence of the constraint-solving algorithm of Numerica in a novel, high-level, way.

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