Mathematical Software

Mathematical software is software that implements algorithms that have a basis in mathematics. The scope of the term is generally accepted to include algorithms whose primary interest or motivation is mathematical and not merely the application of mathematics. Thus, a computer program to solve a system of first-order differential equations is considered to be mathematical software. A program to solve a chemical reaction problem is not mathematical software, even though the essence of the program might be an algorithm for solving differential equations. The scope of the term is much broader than a pure mathematician's view of mathematics: it includes some aspects of programming languages and computer systems. The scope is also much broader than traditional numerical analysis, for it includes such areas as statistics, symbolic mathematical analysis, and linear programming, which are clearly mathematical in nature.