Mathematica 6 Launched 222
Ed Pegg writes "Wolfram Research has just released Mathematica 6. That link, in addition to the usual 'dramatic breakthrough' material, has an amazing flash banner that simultaneously shows a thousand mathematical demonstrations all at once. The animations came from the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, a free service with 1200+ dynamically interactive examples of math, science, and physics, all with code. For the product itself, much is new or improved, with built-in math databases, improved visualizations, and more."
Wolfram Demonstrations Project (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.maa.org/editorial/mathgames/mathgames_
That a dollar in nickels needs $1.88 in metal to be made is surprising.
For something less closed-source, ... (Score:5, Informative)
RTF web site (Score:4, Informative)
"Seamless optimization with graphics hardware on all computer platforms."
Re:3D-Accelerated Rendering? (Score:5, Informative)
Back in the day, I used to be friends with the guy who did this stuff (met him at one of the LUGs). Turns out that he's now a prof at one of the better schools in India [iitb.ac.in].
Anyway, Mathematica rocks, too. There is a lot more that you can do and it has some pretty neat capabilities. Besides, the strength of Mathematica is not merely the engine, it is the libraries and the wealth of demos and code out there.
Re:Cost (Score:2, Informative)
I'm torn... (Score:5, Informative)
However, I recently ran into one of those "top 10 reasons why proprietary software is annoying" situations. I hadn't used Mathematica in awhile, and wanted to go back to some old code and re-run some analysis. However in the meantime I had migrated from Windows to Linux. No problem--the install disk has the installer for Windows, Linux, and Mac all in one. Great. So I install it in Linux and then get the annoying "you must register this product to use it." (On Windows it gives you two weeks before locking out, but in Linux it won't open unless you enter the code, which changes with each new hardware installation.) The online automatic registration said I had to contact them via email. So I did. Eventually got the reactivation code. Turns out it didn't run properly on Linux. The controls were clunky and I couldn't get individuals block to execute (though I could re-execute an entire workbook.) Okay, no problem--I have a Mac laptop. So I load it up there. Then I have to go through the reactivation process again. Another email, more waiting. Eventually get it running.
My point is that I had alot of difficulty getting my (legitimately purchased) copy of Mathematica to actually work for me. I was in a hurry and just wanted to run some code quickly. This 10-minute operation turned into a 4-day ordeal, at the end of which I was very frustrated. It really reminded me the great advantages of programming in standards-based languages, that have open-source implementations. If the code had been written in python (using the Gnu Scientific Library), I would have been able to run it without hassles, and I could send the code to others, knowing that installing Python (on the OS of their choice) was always easy.
I don't want to turn this into a stereotypical OSS vs. proprietary rant... but this very recent experience with Mathematica has left a bad taste in my mouth--and I was previously very much a Mathematica evangelist!
Student scam.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm torn... (Score:3, Informative)
I sympathise. I'm finishing up a PhD in signal processing, and all my coding has been in Matlab. I love Matlab - it's a fantastic package - but licensing is a pain in the ass. The number of times I've been unable to use (my legitamate copy of) Matlab because of some issue with the license server... It's cost me at least a couple of weeks' productivity. I know many other students in the same boat.
For my post-doc work, I'll be using another package. I'll definitely be investigating SciPy (http://www.scipy.org/) - it looks pretty cool.
I use Protools, too, for music recording - don't even get me started on that
Re:For something less closed-source, ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:3D-Accelerated Rendering? (Score:2, Informative)
Also, speaking of cool VTK stuff, there is VisIt (http://www.llnl.gov/visit/ [llnl.gov]). Seems very cool, and it's BSD-licensed (can they do that? they redistribute Qt with it...)
Re:For something less closed-source, ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Front-end changes? (Score:1, Informative)
Open source CAS/numerical software (Score:5, Informative)
For other open source options, see Comparison of computer algebra systems on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
Re:I'm torn... (Score:5, Informative)
More than that: it changes with network device configuration. If your wireless card changes, or you insert a new one, or they get renamed or whatever, you have to get them to reactivate it. I've only bought Mathematica once--the student version several years ago, and I've not bought a new one since.
No, wait. I'm wrong. I bought 5.1 or 5.2 because I had 4.something, because 5.whatever had been released and therefore switching notebooks would have cost me $40 all because they were now shipping 5.x and it was an "old" version. I kid you not. I've had to call them several times because some network device was renamed differently (funny, nothing else on my system seems to care what I call my wireless card, and I've switched the name around a few times) and they couldn't cope with the fact that my ipw2100 card was now "ipw2100" instead of "eth2".
This, however, is only slightly less annoying than Matlab, which requires the effing documentation CD to be mounted in order for it to run thanks to craptastic gaming CD checking technologies. I've not bought another license from them.
Say what you will about IDL (wow I hate that system) but at least its licensing is straightforward. Heck, I bought it 4 years and a whole notebook (not to mention a plethora of network devices) ago, and it is still running off of the original license file.
I'm looking into Maple (can anyone tell me what their licensing scam looks like?), but so far the only math/graphing system I've not absolutely hated is the one I've not yet used....
Open source systems are out there, too (Score:5, Informative)
Axiom: http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/ [axiom-developer.org] (formerly known as Scratchpad) was developed at IBM as a commercial system, sold to NAG, and released a few years ago as an open source program.
and
Maxima: http://maxima.sf.net/ [sf.net] (descended from the pre-commercial Macsyma codebase) was maintained by William Schelter for many years and he obtained permission to release it as open source. Sadly, he passed away a few years later but the Maxima project has grown and now has many active contributors.
They won't have the glitzy graphics or army of specialized packages Mathematica boasts, but they also don't cost $1500 and (theoretically) can be audited for correctness all the way down to their foundations. I regard the latter as very important for people trying to do scientific research with computer algebra tools, and what's more no commercial company is required for their survival (the story of Macsyma is a very good object lesson.)
Maxima is the more "engineering" oriented of the two systems and will probably make more sense to Mathematica inclined users - it can use gnuplot, run on Windows and has a decent GUI called wxMaxima: http://wxmaxima.sf.net./ [wxmaxima.sf.net] Axiom is more oriented towards being "strong" mathematically - it takes more getting used to and has very ambitious goals for long term mathematical research. It is attempting to become a literate program in the tradition of Knuth's TeX system. It doesn't currently have the interfaces to familiar tools the way Maxima does.
Both systems are already very powerful and while there are many bugs to work out progress is being made. If you're shopping around for a CAS and are interested in open source systems, I highly recommend checking them out.
(Bias disclosure - I have been a (minor) member of the Maxima project and am currently interested in/doing a little work on/with Axiom, in case the URL in my info doesn't give it away.)
Re:3D-Accelerated Rendering? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Open source CAS/numerical software (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Open source systems are out there, too (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I think you mean... (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure how far that kind of nerdery is gonna get you... even on slashdot. Know that you've been modded up in my heart.
Here's some wikipedia articles for anyone that's dug this far and is wondering what we are talking about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110_cellular_au
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_complete [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cook [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_computatio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Scienc
Re:I'm torn... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm torn... (Score:5, Informative)
> data analysis or theoretical calculations. [etc.]
I do science in the real world. I can safely say that's a patently ridiculous assertion. We rely on any software we can get to work. Often that's commercial software, because people who develop good software in science frequently take it commercial.
It's our results that need to be replicated, not our methods. Anyone can do the same thing and get the same result. Doing it by a different method and getting the same result is a much more rigorous validation. As long as it's a different box, it doesn't matter if one or both are black.
It's also to our benefit to use commercial software because it's cheaper to buy it, including (re)licensing fees and support, because it's cheaper than paying salary to a code hacker to keep things running. Maybe some have the spare time to hack their own code. I wish I did. But I've got more important things to do.
I've worked in a lab that at first had a EE doctoral student doing Matlab code, and then started using some hardware that required doing analysis in Code Warrior. We needed to get someone else. Not good for the first guy, and expensive in either case for us. I also started collaborating with a lab that used the only open source analysis software in our field (only one other lab used it; the one the lab director came from). I could do by myself what took them 3 people to do, and get it done faster. The collaboration didn't last long.
The accepted procedure in carrying out and publishing research is to reference the software manufacturers in the text and/or references section. If anyone wants to check the results by getting the same things and doing the samr things with them to check validity, they're welcome to. But they don't. They use what they have and compare results. If they really want to check the validity of results, they can get copies of the validity testing done on the software. Any decent software maker will have already done all the validity testing necessary and is glad to make that data available.
Re:I'm torn... (Score:1, Informative)
> the support for it on Linux would have already been better
When I needed help installing a package (a fairly common library) on my Linux server, I got called a n00b and got no assistance. When my new mouse wasn't supported in Linux and I went to the message boards for the distribution, I got told to "google 'mouse problems linux' and stop wasting our time". Needless to say, this n00b chose a different OS.
My experience with Linux is, when things are working it's great -- when there are problems you're stuffed. At least this guy got a response from Wolfram which (eventually) solved his issue. In my case, all I got was jeering and a month of pain before I gave up on Linux.