Mathematical software and ACM Publications

Mathematical software started as a scientific activity almost as soon as serious scientific computing. The field was brought into focus at the symposium Mathematical Software held at Purdue University on April 1-3, 1970. The symposium's organizing committee was John Rice (chairman), Robert Ashenhurst, Charles Lawson, Stuart Lynn and Joseph Traub. It was sponsored by ACM and SIGNUM and financially supported by the Office of Naval Research. Mathematical software was defined then as the set of algorithms in the area of mathematics and it was noted that this definition is much broader than traditional numerical analysis. Even today there are large areas of mathematical software which have yet to be studied systematically or seriously (e.g., geometric algorithms).