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Are there programming languages which handle equations?

by tornadofart on 7/7/23, 12:44 AM with 8 comments

Take for example the equation

U = R * I

In many languages, I have to re-implement this equation according to which values are known and which are not. Something like this pseudocode:

var u = r * i;

...

var r = u / i;

...

var i = u / r;

Are there systems that allow me to only program the equation and compute the missing values depending on what is known? At least for simple algebra with real numbers?

by clipsy on 7/7/23, 2:43 AM
Broadly speaking, it sounds like you're looking for a Computer Algebra System; in addition to some of the recommendations other posts have made, Wikipedia provides a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computer_algebra_syste...
by adastra22 on 7/7/23, 12:48 AM
You are probably looking for a declarative programming language, like Prolog or Curry:
https://curry.pages.ps.informatik.uni-kiel.de/curry-lang.org...
by thesuperbigfrog on 7/7/23, 1:03 AM
Matlab and GNU Octave can do symbolic equation solving:
https://docs.octave.org/v8.2.0/Solvers.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSsuuyISr6Y&t=1s
Matlab is a nice, but expensive commercial product.
GNU Octave is free software (libre and gratis):
https://octave.org/download
by seeknotfind on 7/7/23, 2:19 AM
Not in other comments, so commercial Mathematica can do it. Theorem proving languages such as coq or agda can as well, especially if you're doing really heavy math.
Probably pretty soon we could have the machines (LLMs) convert our prompts into code or solve it directly, depending on exactly what needs to be solved.
by necovek on 7/7/23, 12:45 AM
Metafont (and derivatives like Metapost) do that.