Computer Algebra in R Bridges a Gap Between Mathematics and Data in the Teaching of Statistics and Data Science

TL;DR

The paper introduces the caracas package that enhances R's symbolic mathematics capabilities by integrating SymPy, facilitating advanced mathematics and statistics teaching and research within the R environment.

Contribution

It presents a new R package, caracas, that seamlessly integrates SymPy for symbolic mathematics, bridging a gap between mathematics and data analysis in R.

Findings

Enables symbolic mathematics within R at a high abstraction level.

Supports integration with Rmarkdown for scientific reporting.

Facilitates teaching and research in mathematics and statistics.

Abstract

The capability of R to do symbolic mathematics is enhanced by the caracas package. This package uses the Python computer algebra library SymPy as a back-end but caracas is tightly integrated in the R environment. This enables the R user with symbolic mathematics within R at a high abstraction level rather than using text strings and text string manipulation as the case would be if using SymPy from R directly. We demonstrate how mathematics and statistics can benefit from bridging computer algebra and data via R. This is done thought a number of examples and we propose some topics for small student projects. The caracas package integrates well with e.g. Rmarkdown, and as such creation of scientific reports and teaching is supported.