Computer calculus: long perceived as merely 'number crunchers,' computers are now moving into the realm of elegant mathematics

"Awesome ... invaluable ... unbelievable...." These are the assessments by normally taciturn research scientists of symbolic computer algebra, a group of programs that allows computers to carry out theoretical (rather than merely numerical) calculations. These programs do in a few brief minutes virtually all mathematics that most engineers and scientists know; their ability to slog through theoretical solutions to large systems of equations has already led to advances in gravitation and high energy physics. "It is only a matter of time before these programs provide major breakthroughs," says physicist Richard Pavelle of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Labs in Lexington, Mass.