Why Symbolica?
For many years I have worked on developing computer algebra software used for research at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The necessary computations involved expressions with millions of terms that could take up a terabyte of memory. The specialized software used for these problems date back to the 1990s and tend to be hard to use, and very hard to maintain. Commercial computer algebra software on the market these days tends to be relatively easier to use, but cannot handle the computational challenges of cutting edge problems.
I’ve decided to take all the experience that I gained when writing high-performance computer algebra software and design a new product that is both easy to use and is blazingly fast: Symbolica. Even though I am writing Symbolica for a living and I could keep the entire codebase and development process private, I decided to go for an open approach while still remaining commercially viable.
The code is freely accessible to learn from, but (of course) not to copy/distribute it into another product without explicit permission. Furthermore, Symbolica is free for non-professional use, i.e., for students and hobbyists.
I hope you enjoy this product as much as I do developing it! You’re welcome to reach out to me via e-mail or via Zulip!
Dr. Ben Ruijl
I am the founder and principal researcher at Ruijl Research.
Education
Leiden University, Netherlands | Sept 2013 - Sept 2017
PhD in Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science, cum laude
Radboud University, Netherlands | Sept. 2008 - Sept. 2013
Master in Physics and Astronomy, cum laude
Experience
Ruijl Research | Founder and Principal Researcher | Jan 2023 - present
ETH Zurich | Postdoctoral Researcher | Sept 2017 - Dec 2022
