Experimental Mathematics is a quarterly scientific journal of mathematics published by A K Peters, Ltd. until 2010, now by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes papers in experimental mathematics, broadly construed. The journal's mission statement describes its scope as follows: "Experimental Mathematics publishes original papers featuring formal results inspired by experimentation, conjectures suggested by experiments, and data supporting significant hypotheses."[1] Its editor-in-chief is Alexander Kasprzyk (University of Nottingham).
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| Discipline | Experimental mathematics |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Edited by | Alexander Kasprzyk |
| Publication details | |
| History | 1992–present |
| Publisher | |
| Frequency | quarterly |
| 0.659 (2019) | |
| Standard abbreviations | |
| ISO 4 | Exp. Math. |
| Indexing | |
| ISSN | 1058-6458 (print) 1944-950X (web) |
| LCCN | 2003242218 |
| OCLC no. | 24346305 |
| Links | |
History
editExperimental Mathematics was established in 1992 by David Epstein, Silvio Levy, and Klaus Peters.[2] Experimental Mathematics was the first mathematical research journal to concentrate on experimental mathematics and to explicitly acknowledge its importance for mathematics as a general research field. The journal's launching was described as "something of a watershed".[3] Indeed, the launching of the journal in 1992 was surrounded by some controversy in the mathematical community about the value and validity of experimentation in mathematical research.[3][4] Some critics of the new journal suggested that it be renamed as the "Journal of Unproved Theorems".[5][6] In a 1995 article in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, in part responding to such criticism, Epstein and Levy described the journal's aims as follows:[7]
But the main difference reflects the philosophy above: we are interested not only in theorems and proofs but also in the way in which they have been or can be reached. Note that we do value proofs: experimentally inspired results that can be proved are more desirable than conjectural ones. However, we do publish significant conjectures or explorations in the hope of inspiring other, perhaps better-equipped researchers to carry on the investigation. The objective of Experimental Mathematics is to play a role in the discovery of formal proofs, not to displace them.
Despite the initial controversy, Experimental Mathematics quickly established a solid reputation and is now a highly respected mathematical publication. The journal is reviewed cover-to-cover in Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt MATH and is indexed in the Web of Science.
References
edit- ^ Statement of Philosophy & Publishing Criteria. Experimental Mathematics
- ^ Foreword Archived 2008-04-21 at the Wayback Machine by Igor Rivin, Colin Rourke and Caroline Series. Epstein birthday schrift. Geometry & Topology Monographs, vol. 1. Geometry & Topology Publications, Coventry, 1998. doi:10.2140/gtm.1998.1
- ^ a b James Robert Brown. Philosophy of Mathematics: Introduction to a World of Proofs and Pictures. Taylor & Francis, 1999. ISBN 978-0-415-12274-0; pages 186–187.
- ^ William Bown. New-wave mathematics: A new generation of mathematicians is rebelling against the ancient tradition of theorem and proof.New Scientist. August 3, 1991
- ^ Ursula Martin. Computers, Reasoning and Mathematical Practice. Computational Logic: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Computational Logic, Held in Marktoberdorf, Germany, July 29 – August 10, 1997. (U. Berger and H. Schwichtenberg, editors), pp. 301–346. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1999. ISBN 978-3-540-64589-4; page 326.
- ^ J. Horgan, The death of proof, Scientific American, Vol. 269 (1993), Issue 4, pp. 92–103
- ^ David Epstein and Silvio Levy. Experimentation and Proof in Mathematics. Notices of the American Mathematical Society. vol. 42 (1995), no. 6, pp. 670–674