SciPy / Havana

In case I get to go to SciPy / Havana, I'm boning up on SymPy, an important component within the SciPy Ecosystem.

Here's the kind of thing one might do with SymPy, a computer algebra system:



In [1]:

import sympy as sym




In [2]:

x = sym.symbols('x')
sym.init_printing()




In [3]:

sym.Integral(sym.sin(x), (x, 0, sym.pi))




Out[3]:

$$\int_{0}^{\pi} \sin{\left (x \right )}\, dx$$




In [4]:

sym.Integral(sym.sin(x), (x, 0, sym.pi)).doit()




Out[4]:

$$2$$



In addition, we have numpy, with its multi-dimensional array object. Numpy comes with a host of numeric recipes, already built in...



In [5]:

import numpy as np



What are the ethics of using CAS in a poorly developing country, such as the United States, known for high infant mortality and poverty rates?

Not everyone can easily afford a TI N-spire, and schools tend to not provide adequate computer infrastructure, even for accessing free and open source tools.

Fortunately, even without a TI, we have CAS in the form of the SciPy ecosystem. Adapting a solution from a CAS blog post, Quadratics and CAS, I was able to derive the same solution for the coefficients a, b and c.



In [6]:

np.polyfit(x=[10,5,-2],y=[210, 40, -30], deg=2)




Out[6]:

array([  2.,   4., -30.])



But don't we want algebra students to be able to derive the solution manually? Yes, we do. However, once this step becomes a means to an end, rather than an end in itself, a CAS will save time and facilitate deeper explorations.