The working mathematician, pure or applied, uses a multitude of tools
such as spectral decompositions, isomorphic representations, and functional
transforms, to mention only a few. In this book we shall argue in
favor of a less traditional but, we believe, highly useful tool, namely, the
computer.
What we have in mind is using the computer as the mathematician’s
laboratory, in which he can perform experiments in order to augment his
intuitive understanding of a problem, or to search for conjectures, or to
produce counterexamples, or to suggest a strategy for proving a conjecture.

Hence the theme of this book is experimental mathematics on the
computer. It will not deal with production computing, say, the solution of
a large partial differential equation, the inversion of enormous matrices,
or the numerical handling of combinatorial problems. Nor will it deal with
topics like proving theorems on the computer or related questions belonging
to the area of artificial intelligence.