Richard Zippel
Senior Research Associate
rz@cs.cornell.edu
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/rz/
PhD MIT, 1979
My research focuses on representing scientific knowledge and making these representations easy to manage and
use. Recently, we developed tools that allow scientists and engineers to specify computations in terms of mathematical and geometric constraints and, using a toolkit of program
transformations, convert the specifications into executable code. The constraints take the form of algebraic and differential equations, and the toolkit's transformations |
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capture familiar mathematical techniques like the Runge-Kutta method for numerically solving initial value problems. This higher level approach to software development dramatically reduces the amount of code and time required developing a scientific computation, but it introduces a number of challenging and difficult problems in programming languages.
Another component of this toolkit is a
computer algebra substrate, called Weyl, that extends the data structures
available in Common Lisp to include
objects like polynomials, matrices,
rational functions, rings, vector spaces,
and ideals. The introduction of these
new objects into a programming
language provides a number of new
challenges to the language's type
system as well as new opportunities for
deductive reasoning, which we are
pursuing in concert with B. Constable's
Nuprl project.
We are combining all these tools using
an interchange formalism called the
MathBus. The MathBus tools allow
one to represent a very wide range of
mathematical objects and pass them freely
between programs written in different
languages. MathBus objects can be placed in
mail messages, in databases, and on Web
pages without losing their mathematical
semantics. Thus, one can cut a MathBus
equation from a Web page (where it has
two-dimensional display) and paste it into a
computer algebra system like Maple or Mathematica. This array of tools and
technologies allows one to represent and
manipulate scientific and engineering
knowledge in a freer and semantic richer
fashion than previously possible.
Professional Activities
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Editorial Boards: Journal Symbolic
Computation; ACM Trans.
Mathematical Software
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Referee/Reviewer: NSF, Information
and Computation
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DARPA ISAT Complex Systems
Study Group
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INRIA Research Review Committee
Lectures
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A connstraint based scientific
programming language. Computer
Science, Tel Aviv Univ.., Tel Aviv,
Israel, Feb. 1, 1998.
- Problem solving with symbolic
systems. Weizmann Inst. Science, Rehovot, Israel, June 23, 1998.
Publications
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Zero testing of algebraic functions. IPL
61 (1997), 63-67.
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