Symbolic computation and its application to high energy physics

Reviews the present state of the field of algebraic computation and its potential for problem solving in high energy physics and related areas. The author begins with a brief description of the available systems and examines the data objects which they consider. As an example of the facilities which these systems can offer, the author then considers the problem of analytic integration, since this is so fundamental to many of the calculational techniques used by high energy physicists. Finally, he studies the implications which the current developments in hardware technology hold for scientific problem solving. (20 refs).