History
The idea of automation of the calculations in high-energy physics is not new. It dates back to the 1960s when packages such as SCHOONSCHIP and then REDUCE had been developed.
These are symbolic manipulation codes that automatize the algebraic parts of a matrix element evaluation, like traces on Dirac matrices and contraction of Lorentz indices. Such codes have evolved quite a lot with applications not only optimized for high-energy physics like FORM but also more general purpose programs like Mathematica and Maple.
Generation of QED Feynman graphs at any order in the coupling constant was automatized in the late 70's. One of the first major application of these early developments in this field was the calculation of the anomalous magnetic moments of the electron and the muon. The first automatic system incorporating all the steps for the calculation of a cross section, from Feynman graph generation, amplitude generation through a REDUCE source code that produces a FORTRAN code, phase space integration and event generation with BASES/SPRING is GRAND. It was limited to tree-level processes in QED. In the early nineties, a few groups started to develop packages aiming at the automation in the SM.
Read more about this topic: Automatic Calculation Of Particle Interaction Or Decay
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)