Symbolic computation or algebraic computation or computer algebra relates to algorithms and software for manipulating mathematical expressions and equations in symbolic form, as opposed to manipulating the approximations of specific numerical quantities represented by those symbols. Software applications that perform symbolic calculations are called computer algebra systems.
These systems might be used for symbolic integration or differentiation, substitution of one expression into another, simplification of an expression, etc., for most operations of calculus and, more generally, for every computation with mathematical objects for which algorithms are known. Computer algebra softwares are widely used in many scientific and engineering domains.
Symbolic computation is also sometimes referred to as symbolic manipulation, symbolic processing, symbolic mathematics, or symbolic algebra, but these terms also refer to non-computational manipulation.
This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.