Analytic Differentiation by Computer

Authors

James W. Hanson, Jane Shearin Caviness, Camilla Joseph

Year

1962

Journal Paper

Algorithm

Analytic Differentiation by Computer

Source

Communications of the ACM

Identifiers

DOI 10.1145/367766.368195

Abstract¶

During the past few years a major portion of the work in computer applications has been concentrated in the two closely related fields of automatic programming and symbol manipulation. The results of this effort have been a wealth of new computer languages, a better understanding and definition of the basic principles and problems of symbol manipulation, and a growing body of algorithms and techniques for use in the applications.

Summary¶

Hanson, Caviness, and Joseph present analytic differentiation as a concrete symbol-manipulation problem for computers, connecting derivative generation to the broader emergence of automatic programming and computer algebra. The paper is useful historically because it cites the 1953 Nolan and Kahrimanian theses and captures how symbolic differentiation was understood before mature CAS tools.