Wolfram Research Releases Mathematica 7

mblase writes "Wolfram Research has released the seventh version of Mathematica, and it does a lot more than symbolic algebra. New features range from things as simple as cut-and-paste integration with Microsoft Word's Equation Editor to instant 3D models of mathematical objects to the most expensive clone of Photoshop ever. Full suites of genome, chemical, weather, astronomical, financial, and geodesic data (or support for same) is designed to make Mathematica as invaluable for scientific research as it is for mathematics."

Wolfman?

[Xerolooper]

Did anyone else read that as Wolfman. Pretty impressive for a shapeshifter.
Seriously though this has the potential to do for this form of mathmatics what Spreadsheets did for Accounting.

Re:From my point of view

[addaon]

The student version is cheap (free at most decent universities). The Wolfram folk are great if you need a deviation on the license for student stuff (running on a multi-processor machine before multiple kernel executions were included in the default license); just ask. As a long-time student, Mathematica is the greatest tool out there, and is the only software out there where I'm consistently excited about no versions, and /always/ find ways to incorporate at least a few of the new features in my existing notebooks. With Mathematica 6, Manipulate[] was an absolute game changer. With Mathematica 7, I'm betting ParallelTable[] and the new charting features will be just as big a deal, for me.

Re:Slashvertisement

[Flying Scotsman]

How are the free alternatives coming along? Any recommendations?

I've used Maxima [sourceforge.net] with good results. Not quite Mathematica, though.

Re:Free Alternative? Sage maybe.

[muuh-gnu]

>the usability of Sage blows. It's pretty powerful sure, but when even Maple is easier to
>use then you've got a problem

What do you actually mean by "easier to use", regarding a computer algebra system for doing heavy math? Clicketyclicking around without having to actually learn to use it? This easy to use mem may actually have some validity in desktop environments and generall consumer leisure apps, but I'm wondering to actually see such unwillingness to learn from people doing _MATH_, which are, by definition, required to be curious into how things work and not just clicking around and rotating colorful 3D surfaces the whole day.

Re:From my point of view

[Anpheus]

Manipulate[] alone beats every chalkboard/whiteboard/overhead projector hands down. I found it to be a profound aid in teaching myself concepts such as curvature on a line or a plane and other things.

Scipy

[Anonymous Coward]

I have found Scipy (www.scipy.org) to be greater than or equal to anything out there, including Matlab and Octave...but I don't do symbolic stuff much so I can't make a solid Mathematica comparison.

Re:I think I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

The ironic thing about Mathematica software being pirated is that Wolfram himself has no shame when it comes to pirating.

This was overheard in his office. When an engineer of his said that he needed a $10,000 software suite to do his job, Wolfram said, "Well just rip it off!"

I do not feel bad for Wolfram if their products experience the same result. And I would be willing to bet this is why they're so draconian with the attempted copy protection. I legitimately bought version 4 about 6 years ago and I have used a keygen to install it on new computers when I wanted to move it...rather than having to call them up to unlock it.

Re:Fuck Mathematica

[dubbreak]

I'll second the advice on Octave. I used Matlab for some projects in university but quickly switched over to Octave. I did all my work for my numerical methods course using Octave. As the prof and markers never actually ran our code (they just quickly looked over source and results) they didn't even notice it wasn't matlab. As that course was fairly simple pretty much all of it would have compiled under matlab with no changes. Some of the more complex stuff I did for projects would have required a bit of "porting", but not nearly as much as porting to a different language.

Re:Slashvertisement

[sixide]

I tried to use Octave for a while. It's a disaster. Most of the functionality is there, but some of my code ran at a snails pace in Octave. I "ported" it to MATLAB, and the speedup was around 100-200 fold.