Scientific software

multiple issues
orphan = August 2008
unreferenced = August 2008
expand = August 2008
essay = August 2008

A software or program is called scientific, if the subject it addresses is scientific.

Even if deep knowledge is needed for the creation of a particular software, this alone makes it not necessarily scientific. Even the graphics of entertainment programs may need fairly nontrivial algebraic geometry (one subject of the hardest abstract mathematics), but the entertainment software itself is rarely scientific.

* Scientific software (free) an overview of free, copylefted academic softwares
* Scientific software (non free) an overview of proprietary scientific softwares

What scientific software provides

While the pioneering softwares addressed only scientific calculations, where even the particular problem was well defined before the writing of purpose oriented the software itself, the contemporary technique and science is already powerful enough to support multipurpose and even general scientific softwares, where the same program can handle entirely different problems.

How to feed diverse problems to the same versatile scientific software?

This question is solved usually by providing a specially designed programming language, what is either interpreted or compiled by the scientific software in question. In the both cases, the effective result is, that the user of the software describes his/her scientific request or algorithm on the language in question, and on the base of this description the computer will deliver either a satisfactory result, or a partial result, or a warning of fiasco.

While the success usually depends heavily on the nature of the question and it's interpretation using the programming language provided by the scientific software, the user is not left alone. The language in question is usually equipped with a vast amount of well written functions calling state of the art algorithms, and there is also an access to a huge knowledge base. Hence, in the easier cases, it is enough to call the appropriate algorithm, or grab out something from the knowledge base, and perhaps to make a few polishing steps in order to distill the result.

The popularity of a scientific software depends mainly how it can tackle the usual requests of a wider community, while the scientific respect depends on how the software behaves in heavy duty, under complex scientific load.

Let us mention, that there are quite a few topics, where nontrivial graphics can be and must be involved in order to represent the given input and the expected output. This case, the programming language is equipped with graphical user interface, and due to the obvious visibility of this graphics, the non graphical core of the language is not really visible for the non experts.

The borders, margins of the notion "to be a scientific software" is not always clear. First two clear cases. In the case of the scientifically complex software of a contemporary fighter aircraft it is clear, that the software on board is not a scientific software, because the subject it addresses is not scientific. While even a scientifically much less complex software, written by students as a compulsory home work, can be considered scientific software, if it offers answers for a few scientific questions or exercises. Second a border case. Consider the medical imaging, once used in the daily hospital routine, otherwise used for investigating scientific questions. In the both cases, nontrivial medical, natural scientific and mathematical knowledge is used. It is a bit not so clear, but the subject addressed in the case of the daily routine is also scientific.

From the user's point of view

A scientific software can exempt the user from dirty numerical or exhausting symbolical calculations, or from manual looking up of diverse scientific facts, or manual evaluation of a scientific situation having a computationally well defined evaluation protocol, etc.

On the other hand, the user is rarely exempted from understanding the scientific notions involved in the formulation of the question and the result.

Important impact of the ever evolving scientific softwares on the public education is, that understanding is getting more and more important, than the blind drills and exhausting practicing.

The scientific programs are very similar to the telescopes and microscopes. All of these extend our scientific perception beyond the limits of our body. Namely the limits of our eyes and our brain.