Yes
No
I wanted to get some opinions on mathmatica.
Is it worth purchasing? I want a tool to compliment my mathmatics studies. I have heard this tool is amazing, and can do basically any math from algebra to the highest levels of calculas. Is this true? Please answer the pole as yes i would recomend it, including a posted reason on why or no I would not recomend it, including a posted reason why not. Thank you.
post 300
Last edited by xviddivxoggmp3; 10-04-2004 at 06:37 PM.
"Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
Art of War Sun Tzu
what is it? any web links?
http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html
oops. I misspelled it.
ok you are all correct.
I'm not an english major.
"Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
Art of War Sun Tzu
It depends on what you are planning on using it for/studying. (Granted, it is fun to play with.) For abstract/pure math, it would not be so useful as it can't do the proofs for you (and, it would be hard to learn much if it did, anyway). It is rather useful for advanced physics, though. Certainly, there are a lot of other things it is useful for, but whether it will be useful to you depends on what you plan on doing.
Yes, mathematica is a great program and can do all ranges of math. I don't know off hand how much it costs, I'm sure the website says, but I suspect it's over a thousand dollars. I have to ask what math are you in now? I would recommend against getting mathematica while you are still learning math. The program is so powerful that chances are you'll go to it often and not work through a hard problem yourself to get to the same level of understanding. From what I know Mathematica's main use is for post-graduate and industry levels.
Yeah, it is great for doing grunt work for you. I think a student license is several hundred.
mathematica 5 student license is $139.99
I want it to show me the steps of what I can not figure out on my own.
I also want it to check my homework, the books I use do not disclose the answers in the back of the book or in the instructors solution manual. How are you to know if you are correct. I can not find it and neither can the instructor. We are then to trust that the answer we found was correct. If mathematica does not disclose the steps, then it may not be of any assistance to me. I was advised though that it would show every step in finding the answer.
"Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
Art of War Sun Tzu
Alright, that's a little different. I'm going to assume you're in calculus, and you can go to http://www.calc101.com and try some of its features. The website will give you an intro into what mathematica can do, and yes it does explain the steps one by one so it will serve you for the purpose of checking answers. Maybe your teacher should get it.
from your post, is it safe to assume it doesn't allow you to create a problem identical to the way it looks in the book? are we required to alter the format from the book to fit a format that the software can accept? similar to the way my graphing calculator does?
"Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
Art of War Sun Tzu
I suggest Maple or Matlab. Maple for hard core and exact math, matlab for simulation and programmable type problems. Ive never used mathematica but ive heard from some math friends that it doesnt hold anything to Maple.
Consider what you really need in for. A nice little TI-89 or the like may be more handy.
The word rap as it applies to music is the result of a peculiar phonological rule which has stripped the word of its initial voiceless velar stop.
I have Maple, Matlab and Mathematica at my school and while I've only looked at Mathematica any good amount all three are great programs. From what I've seen Maple would have a lot more than you would need, and matlab is more of a specialized programming language/environment that has some good math functions. I personally would think you'd be better suited with mathematica than maple, but you can look at some of maple's math tutorials at this website and see what you think for yourself. http://www.mapleapps.com/highschoolc...leTutors.shtml
draco,
thanks.
i reviewed both tutorials, and it has helped alot.
"Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
Art of War Sun Tzu
Mathematic is undoubtedly worth purchasing if you are into math. Its basically a Ti-999999 that can do practically everything from basic addition to sequences to even dictionary lookups. But I thougth mathematica was like $1000+ so I dunno about the pricetag. I got it for free from math camp.
I haven't tried Mathematica that much, but it's great for drawing and plotting in 2D and 3D.
You can just enter an arbitrary equation and the program will draw the shape, like this:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ClebschDiagonalCubic.html
Matlab is only made for numerical calculations. It's particulary good with matrices (the name stand for Matrix lab IIRC).
Last edited by Sang-drax : Tomorrow at 02:21 AM. Reason: Time travelling
