open-source Mathematica equivalent?
Joe Strout
longer qualify for an educational discount, but still have occasional
need (or desire) to do some math -- but the standard price ($2500) is
ridiculous, absolutely out of the question for me.
So, now I'm looking for an open-source equivalent. It seems like this
would be a good candidate for open-source development, but I can't seem
to find anything that's quite what I'm looking for. I'm aware of these:
http://web.usna.navy.mil/~wdj/opensource_math.html
...but none of them sound as general and powerful as Mathematica.
Maxima sounds close, though it's actually a predecessor of Mathematica;
I wonder how well it's stood up over time.
Any opinions on these, or anything to consider not on the above list?
Thanks,
- Joe
--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work.
Learn more and discuss via: <http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/>
Jon Harrop
> As a student, I used Mathematica for years and loved it. But now, I no
> longer qualify for an educational discount, but still have occasional
> need (or desire) to do some math -- but the standard price ($2500) is
> ridiculous, absolutely out of the question for me.
>
> So, now I'm looking for an open-source equivalent. It seems like this
> would be a good candidate for open-source development, but I can't seem
> to find anything that's quite what I'm looking for. I'm aware of these:
>
> http://web.usna.navy.mil/~wdj/opensource_math.html
>
> ...but none of them sound as general and powerful as Mathematica.
> Maxima sounds close, though it's actually a predecessor of Mathematica;
> I wonder how well it's stood up over time.
>
> Any opinions on these, or anything to consider not on the above list?
To the best of my knowledge, there aren't even any good free graph plotters,
let along integrated technical computing environments.
I used Mathematica for my PhD and converted to OCaml and F# when I left.
They are both free and vastly superior as programming languages but neither
offers a typeset IDE or graph plotting.
--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
OCaml for Scientists
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists/?usenet
David Stone
Joe Strout <j...@strout.net> wrote:
> As a student, I used Mathematica for years and loved it. But now, I no
> longer qualify for an educational discount, but still have occasional
> need (or desire) to do some math -- but the standard price ($2500) is
> ridiculous, absolutely out of the question for me.
>
> So, now I'm looking for an open-source equivalent. It seems like this
> would be a good candidate for open-source development, but I can't seem
> to find anything that's quite what I'm looking for. I'm aware of these:
>
> http://web.usna.navy.mil/~wdj/opensource_math.html
>
> ...but none of them sound as general and powerful as Mathematica.
> Maxima sounds close, though it's actually a predecessor of Mathematica;
> I wonder how well it's stood up over time.
>
> Any opinions on these, or anything to consider not on the above list?
Octave is an open-source equivalent (more or less) to Matlab, although
I'm told the plot functions aren't as good. There's also the R project,
which is mainly used for statistical analysis, although you can do
a great deal else with it. I've also got Gnuplot here, although I
haven't really done much with it.
Jon Harrop
> As a student, I used Mathematica for years and loved it. But now, I no
> longer qualify for an educational discount, but still have occasional
> need (or desire) to do some math -- but the standard price ($2500) is
> ridiculous, absolutely out of the question for me.
I just found myself in the same boat because I have a lot of software
written in Mathematica and the price here is even bigger (£2,000 which is
over US$4,000!).
I'm just going to implement all of the functionality that I need myself on
top of OCaml and F# as these are the best languages currently available
(IMHO).
--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?u
Lou Pecora
Jon Harrop <use...@jdh30.plus.com> wrote:
> Joe Strout wrote:
> > As a student, I used Mathematica for years and loved it. But now, I no
> > longer qualify for an educational discount, but still have occasional
> > need (or desire) to do some math -- but the standard price ($2500) is
> > ridiculous, absolutely out of the question for me.
>
> I just found myself in the same boat because I have a lot of software
> written in Mathematica and the price here is even bigger (£2,000 which is
> over US$4,000!).
>
> I'm just going to implement all of the functionality that I need myself on
> top of OCaml and F# as these are the best languages currently available
> (IMHO).
Check out SAGE (based on the Python language and lots of open source
mathematical software). I have only played with it a little, but it is
free and very easy to install (no brainer, really). It appears to have
a nice interface through your browser and seems to cover a lot. Worth a
look. There is an online video lecture about SAGE. That gives you a
good idea of the system. Just google SAGE and Python.
--
-- Lou Pecora
Charles Allen
> to find anything that's quite what I'm looking for. I'm aware of these:
>
> http://web.usna.navy.mil/~wdj/opensource_math.html
>
> ...but none of them sound as general and powerful as Mathematica.
> Maxima sounds close, though it's actually a predecessor of Mathematica;
I find Maxima, along with wxMaxima as a front-end sometimes, works
just fine for what I use it for. Having "grown up" using Macsyma
probably helps. What, in particular, did you have in mind?
If you don't find any of the listed projects powerful enough, perhaps
you could consider contributing to one of them, such as Maxima. Open
source doesn't grow without attention.
--
Charles Allen