Math Software

[vatar]

Uncommons Maths looks interesting. It is a java library that has expanded random number abilities, including various distributions. Also Combinatorics, Statistics, Rational Arithmetic, and Binary packages.
https://uncommons-maths.dev.java.net/

[xkcdaddict]

I was recently introduced to winplot.

It's a great small tool for windows, can do 2D and 3D and has an internal list of all the functions.

[Mach1ne]

Do folks still use Scilab and Octave? They sound like they ought to be as useful as MATLAB is.

Yep people still use them in numerical analysis. I'm currently using Octave in a class and if you can get passed the command prompt style and the less user friendly layout it works almost as good at MATLAB. Pretty nice piece of free software there.

[thoughtfully]

I recently came across Mathomatic, which is a basic, really lightweight computer algebra system. Its available as a static executable for Linux, which is only about two thirds of a megabyte. There's a win32 package that comes bundled with Cygwin DLLs that is a little bigger. It doesn't have every obscure feature under the Sun, but it's got a few of them. It's also actively maintained. For those times when Maxima is overkill, too bloated, or just plain ain't behaving (which is more often then I'd like). It also has colors, a feature that Maxima cannot boast of!

Here's a sample session:

Code: Select all

Mathomatic version 14.3.3 (www.mathomatic.org)
Copyright (C) 1987-2009 George Gesslein II.
100 equation spaces available, 960 kilobytes per equation space.
ANSI color mode enabled; disable with the -c option.
1-> a=G*M/r/r

         G*M
#1: a = -----
        (r*r)

1-> r=2*G*M/c/c

        2*G*M
#2: r = -----
        (c*c)

2-> tu=hbar*a/(2*pi*c*k)

           hbar*a
#3: tu = -----------
         (2*pi#*c*k)

3-> replace a with #1
G*M/(r*r)

             hbar*G*M
#3: tu = -----------------
         (2*(r^2)*pi#*c*k)

3-> replace r with #2
2*G*M/(c*c)

               hbar*G*M
#3: tu = ---------------------
             2*G*M
         (2*(-----^2)*pi#*c*k)
             (c^2)

3-> simplify

          hbar*(c^3)
#3: tu = -------------
         (8*G*M*pi#*k)


[Ended]

For data visualisation, ParaView is a great piece of open source software. It takes maybe a day of coding (at the very most - usually more like half an hour) to get your code to dump data in a compatible format (I've found the VTK ASCII format to be easiest), and you then gain access to a wide range of powerful, professional visualisation tools.

VisIt is similar, although I've never used it.

[codebliss]

I am a huge fan of Qualculate!. Its library is also released open source. It allows you to parse mathematical strings, generate latex, et cetera.

[Exeter]

If you're a student, I highly recommend the student version of Mathematica. It runs $120 and will carry you from high school through graduate school, should you need it to.

If you're not a student, I'm inclined to recommend SymPy or [url=sagemath.org]Sage[/url]. Both are Free Software (as in no cost and copyleft) and quite good, but not as powerful as Maple or Mathematica just yet.

[CrazyIvan]

For mathematicians who are pathological liars:

SAS: Huge dinosaur stats and data manipulation package, tries to be everything, only partially succeeds. Steep learning curve, Steep price. Lots of expensive add-ins.

R: Like SAS, but free. Lots of free but questionably coded add-ins. Caveat emptor.

SPSS, MiniTAB: Clicky stats. Get the job done, if you don't need much.

OpenEpi is cool if you need to do some basic stats from a strange computer.

My overwhelming favorite:
Stata: A bit of a learning curve (can replace 30 lines of SAS code with a single line). Excellent handling of complex survey weights. Small, fast, and powerful, leaves data manipulation to database programs that are good at that sort of thing. Has a peer-reviewed database of new procedures and papers, the online help/journal is amazing. Pisses SAS users off.

To quote a STATA rep's remix of Baby Got Back: "So they teach Stata in class, but the real world uses SAS..."

My take on the many and sundry statistics packages out there:

SAS: The 800 pound gorilla of the stats world, it does a tremendous amount of stuff, and does it well. A very active community means there are code snippits for almost anything out there, and when it comes down to it, chances are your collaborators are using it. Very good at data manipulation. Cons: Wicked pricey, a substantial learning curve, and without some serious know-how, it can't graph its way out of a paper bag, temptation to punch Stata users.

JMP: SAS's graphical cousin - I'm convinced one day its just going to be repackaged as the GUI and data visualization arm of the main SAS package. Decent stats, good integration with SAS for data manipulation needs, very good data visualization. It makes some decisions essentially for you, which can be good for the beginning statistics types, but occasionally gets annoying.

SPSS/MiniTab/SysStat etc.: Pretty lightweight programs that can get the job done if you're talking about t-tests, ANOVA and linear regression. For anything more complex, SAS/Stata/R users will look at you like you're damaged.

R: Free, rockstar visualization, active community. Very good package, can do nigh everything SAS or Stata can do. On the other hand, at least one major paper has had to be retracted due to coding errors - open source is only as good as the community, and every module needs to be looked over with a critical eye.

Stata: Very good program, way cheaper than SAS, but with somewhat less market penetration. Can do much better visualization than SAS, but that's like beating a cripple in a foot race. Tends, in my experience, to not be the program of choice for the hardcore stats types, who favor SAS or R/S+, but very popular with applied folks. Does meta-analysis way better than SAS. Slightly less "there's a book on how to do that" than SAS because they're lacking the publication might of the SAS Press. My major hangup is the language itself tends to encourage letting you not specify certain choices or let the program take care of it in the background - I prefer having to expressly code things.

[StardustDeath]

The Geometer's Scetchpad (spelled wrong purposfully) SUCKS!!! Geogebra is much easier to use AND it's free. Soon, Geometer's S. will become obselete so to all of you geometry teachers that still use it: FAIL

Use Geogebra

[Shokk]

The Geometer's Scetchpad (spelled wrong purposfully) SUCKS!!! Geogebra is much easier to use AND it's free. Soon, Geometer's S. will become obselete so to all of you geometry teachers that still use it: FAIL

Use Geogebra

So I was going to make my first post here about geometry software, but then I saw this post and was like "Well, I guess I'll try GeoGebra, for this guy to be so fervently supporting it he's either paid to do it or it's pretty awesome".
So I tried out GeoGebra, and it's PRETTY SWEET.
Except for one thing,I can't figure out any way to measure angles and compare segment lengths and things like that, which I remember being able to do in GSP,
IE: one time in class we proved the Law of Sines by plugging in the segment lengths into the equation so it looked like (sin B/AC),(sin A/BC),(sin C/AB) in the "Calculate" Window and then the values popped up nicely in the corner of the drawing space so that I could observe that the values were indeed equal even as we wildly moved the vertices of triangle ABC.
I don't seem to be able to dynamically observe things like this in Geogebra, so basically I'm posting this to say that I was rather disappointed and also in hopes that I'm just an arseface who just couldn't figure out how to do it.

Would you happen to know of any OTHER free software that has this capability?

[notzeb]

For geometry, I've always used this free program called kseg. I've not tried other geo programs.

Also I've been using this thing called Macaulay 2 for the last summer. Ever wanted to try computing sheaf cohomology on a projective scheme? Now you can!! (You can also do groebner bases, primary decompositions, find minimal projective resolutions, and the like)

[Kurushimi]

I'm looking for a program to write mathematical equations with ease with. Something that can export the written formula in some sort of image format. And it should run on Linux.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Talith]

I'm looking for a program to write mathematical equations with ease with. Something that can export the written formula in some sort of image format. And it should run on Linux.

Any help would be appreciated.

Try www.mathurl.com . If you know a little LaTeX then it's really easy to typeset equations. It outputs a .png image which you can save. If I remember correctly I was introduced to the site from a thread someone posted on the fora and I use it very often to talk mathy with people in IMs.

[Alpha Omicron]

Kurushimi: Just get a LaTeX distribution. Failing that, there's a web-based one called ScribTeX.

[bloodavenger9]

MAPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im a U waterloo cs student so gotta support our program!

[Mens rea]

I am not sure if anyone said this yet, because I am too busy (read lazy) to scan through all the replies, but Wolfram's Mathematica is quite possibly the best commercially available math software. I can say it is definitely worth the money.

[stephentyrone]

I am not sure if anyone said this yet, because I am too busy (read lazy) to scan through all the replies, but Wolfram's Mathematica is quite possibly the best commercially available math software. I can say it is definitely worth the money.

No reading necessary:

Search found 11 matches: +mathematica

[Kurushimi]

I'm looking for a data plotter. Something that I can feed a bunch of x, y coordinates in any simple format which, preferably, I can make a program write into a text file and then copy/paste (something like two numbers a line with spaces between them) , and it will churn out a graph plotting them all.

Any extra features would be a bonus.
(I know googling "Data plotter" will probably give me what I'm looking for. But I post here to get the one people have had the best experience with)

[Jorpho]

I'm looking for a data plotter. Something that I can feed a bunch of x, y coordinates in any simple format which, preferably, I can make a program write into a text file and then copy/paste (something like two numbers a line with spaces between them) , and it will churn out a graph plotting them all.

Any extra features would be a bonus.
(I know googling "Data plotter" will probably give me what I'm looking for. But I post here to get the one people have had the best experience with)

What's wrong with Excel/OpenOffice Calc ?

For something more complex I'd try throwing something together in Python with SciPy/Python-Matplotlib.

[Kurushimi]

Actually, I totally forgot about excel. It seems like exactly what I need. Thank you.

[Ended]

Gnuplot is another standard solution (plotting a datafile of the type you describe is pretty much exactly what it's designed for). It's scriptable, fairly easy to use, and can produce publication-quality graphs (with a bit of practice).

[joshz]

So I'm in high school, taking IB Math Higher Level starting this year (syllabus which may be accurate here [it goes up to derivatives and integrals, maybe higher, IIRC]), and my teacher recommended I get the student edition of Mathematica.
However, my parents aren't sure what benefit it would provide to me, or whether it would just let me do my homework faster. I looked at the wiki page for mathematica, but it's not exactly very friendly to the uninitiated.
So, what benefits would mathematica provide to me, and do you think I should get it?

Thanks!

[Jorpho]

I learned integral and differential calculus very well, and I never had Mathematica.

I suppose if you're some "visual learner" (or something) and feel that you get a much better grasp of concepts from looking at graphs of curves with tangents drawn on them and such forth, something of that nature might be useful.

I must also admit that when I learned I could use Mathcad (not quite the same) to check my algebra for the massive, lengthy equations I had previously been trying to do by hand, it was something I'd wished I'd learned about a long time ago. But I would question the educational value of assigning questions requiring that much algebra for just basic integral or differential calculus. Besides, doesn't the professor expect you to show your work?

[joshz]

Well, we haven't gotten into calculus yet, so I don't know how long/complicated the equations will be, or how easily I'll learn them.

Yeah, our math teacher expects us to show our work, and we probably won't have mathematica available on tests, so I definitely wouldn't want to become dependent on it.

[Macbi]

What I'd really like is a program where I can plot a graph like
(x-a)²+(y-b)²=1
and have the point (a,b) appear on my graph, so that the graph redraws as I drag it about. Does anyone know if there are any programs in which I can do that?

[Narius]

What do you guys think of MathCAD?
I only ask because as a student at my college a got a free download, so naturally I downloaded it. I haven't really played around with it much though.
I really haven't heard that much either, at least to people I've talked to in person. Most of the people I know of use MatLab.
Is MathCAD even a program worth having?

[Jorpho]

I just posted about MathCAD above. The interface really takes some getting used to.

[Jorpho]

ei guys..Whats the difference between mathcad and mathlab?

Night and day. I suggest you consult Wikipedia.

Can you give me some sites where mathcad is free to download?

No.

(Why does this sound like a spambot?)

[adanedhel728]

Maxima is really good, as has been said a few times before. It has random and unexpected limitations, though. It can do a staircase graph, which surprised me, but I never could figure out how to find the maxima or minima of a function, which seems like it would be a very basic function. Maxima takes some getting used to, but it's a pretty good program, especially considering it's free. I use it occasionally for my fractals class. It's essentially command-based (really, though, all CAS programs are), but it's good a great GUI frontend (if I'm using that word correctly) called wxMaxima if you're using Windows or Linux. Most of the major commands can be entered by selecting them in the menu and putting in the information you need, then wxMaxima creates the code for you. For the lesser-known commands, you have to look at the guide. Don't know about the Mac GUI frontend, but I know there is one.

This may have already been posted, but I found this article useful, and it's how I came across Maxima--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_software

I've got a pretty cool Windows Mobile program called PocketCAS, too. Unfortunately, I get pretty much zero use out of it, though, lol. When I'm out and about, I don't have the patience to use it, especially because a TI-89 does most of the important stuff.

Edit: I'm about to try SMath, too. (http://en.smath.info/forum/) I'm surprised it hasn't been listed already. Maybe that means it sucks, lol, I don't know, but I'm giving it a try. It's also available on WinMo.

[RogerMurdock]

Well, we haven't gotten into calculus yet, so I don't know how long/complicated the equations will be, or how easily I'll learn them.

Yeah, our math teacher expects us to show our work, and we probably won't have mathematica available on tests, so I definitely wouldn't want to become dependent on it.

I would say go for it anyway. I was in a similar situation when I started Calc AB and bought a TI-89. If you don't know, it can symbolically solve, do derivatives, integrals, limits...etc. I was told it was a bad idea to even own it, and I really shouldn't use it or I probably wouldn't learn anything at all.

Turns out, it helped a ton with homework and I often learned things ahead of the curve just by playing around with it in class and seeing what came out. I consider myself a better student for it today, and I wouldn't imagine your situation would be much different with mathematica. Though reading over your/my posts, an 89 seems much more your speed. Mathematica is nice, but you can't lug your computer around everywhere and an 89 can be used in class and on the AP exam (a huge advantage in my opinion).

[adanedhel728]

I just noticed that this topic's been stickied. (Maybe it's been stickied for awhile but I just didn't notice.) Might I also suggest maybe making a brief list of the programs mentioned and putting it in the first post and categorizing them into free/not free? Just a suggestion. I also realize that might be hard to keep up.

While I'm here, I might as well mention that yesterday I heard two people in the math dept talking about a free iPhone app that's basically a reference program, like it lists important series, integrals, etc. etc. Unfortunately, I don't know what it's called, but I think that if you just search "math reference" in the app store it's the first thing that comes up. I don't use an iPhone, but it looked really useful, so if you have an iPhone you might want to check it out. It's actually what led me to SMath, because I wondered if there was a similar program for WinMo and that turned out to be a function of SMath.

[RogerMurdock]

I just noticed that this topic's been stickied. (Maybe it's been stickied for awhile but I just didn't notice.) Might I also suggest maybe making a brief list of the programs mentioned and putting it in the first post and categorizing them into free/not free? Just a suggestion. I also realize that might be hard to keep up.

While I'm here, I might as well mention that yesterday I heard two people in the math dept talking about a free iPhone app that's basically a reference program, like it lists important series, integrals, etc. etc. Unfortunately, I don't know what it's called, but I think that if you just search "math reference" in the app store it's the first thing that comes up. I don't use an iPhone, but it looked really useful, so if you have an iPhone you might want to check it out. It's actually what led me to SMath, because I wondered if there was a similar program for WinMo and that turned out to be a function of SMath.

I have an app on my iphone just like this, it's called Formulus Free and i'm pretty sure it's a free downoad. Very useful, contains most rules and formulas from basic geometry to trig to calc and so on.

[adanedhel728]

FYI, Roger, I'm pretty sure there's some CAS program for iPhone out there, too. You might find that useful. But, honestly, I really haven't used my WinMo CAS program much, lol.

Edit: I went ahead and looked it up, and the iPhone CAS program is called Mathomatic. (I'm guessing you get it by searching in the App Store? I don't know how acquiring new iPhone applications works.) It's actually not exclusively on the iPhone, but the iPhone version is the only one with a GUI, according to Wikipedia.

Anyway, thought you might like to know in case it interests you. And any other iPhone users who would read this.

Edit again: Just discovered that it's not free, but cheap, just $2.

http://www.gotow.net/mathomatic/

[thoughtfully]

I've mentioned Mathomatic before in this thread (go to the top of this page). It's open source, and it says so on the link to the iPhone app. It's pretty lightweight/console oriented, but still capable. Perfect for a iPhone. You can click on the support tab or go to my post to get to the Mathomatic site and get full docs.

[adanedhel728]

Since I've mentioned PocketCAS, I'll go ahead and post a couple of things--

http://pocketcas.com/?Download

Download for the WinMo version.

And now apparently it's being developed for the iPhone as well, since the person who makes the program just got one, it looks like.

http://pocketcas.com/iphone

Also $2.

Thankfully the download for the WinMo version is still available, but I am disappointed that there won't be any future releases.

[jstnice]

I am using autoCAD,it's good.

[murkle]

What I'd really like is a program where I can plot a graph like
(x-a)²+(y-b)²=1
and have the point (a,b) appear on my graph, so that the graph redraws as I drag it about. Does anyone know if there are any programs in which I can do that?

Three ways to do this (or similar) in GeoGebra:

(1)
Type: x^2+y^2=1 and then drag the graph
Optional - type: A=Center[c]

(2)
Make a Point A
Type: Circle[A,1]

(3)
Make a Point A
Type: (x-x(A))^2+(y-y(A))^2=1 and drag Point A

[murkle]

Except for one thing,I can't figure out any way to measure angles and compare segment lengths and things like that

Quick example: If you have a segment called 'a' then you can type this into the Input Bar to make a dynamic text:

"length = "+a

Ask in the GeoGebra forums or read the manual for more information (including how to make fractions appear nicely)

[Aleifr]

Someone really should make a list of all of these programs people have mentioned.

[Quaternia]

Someone really should make a list of all of these programs people have mentioned.

~"Your wish is my command"~
Spoilered for EXCESSIVE length.

Spoiler:

http://www.gnuplot.info/
http://soft.proindependent.com/qtiplot.html
GrafEq http://www.peda.com
Graph http://www.padowan.dk/graph/
http://www.freewebs.com/mytestingzone/reviews/graphmath.xml
GraphCalc http://www.graphcalc.com
Matlab
Mathematica
Maple
PARI/GP
CPAN
Jenn 3D http://www.math.cmu.edu/~fho/jenn/
Python http://home.gna.org/pychart/
Mac OS X, the application Grapher
Windows XP, Power Calculator
Scilab http://www.scilab.org/
Octave http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Octave
ROOT
JKGraph http://homepage.smc.edu/kennedy_john/ABSTRACTS.HTM
Sage http://www.sagemath.org/
Open DX http://www.opendx.org/
Maxima http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
Singular http://www.singular.uni-kl.de/
mathcad (v14)
Mupad
Scientific Workplace
Dia
Wolfram Mathematica http://integrator.wolfram.com
Pro/ENGINEER
MAGMA calculator http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/calc/
Logger Pro
Graphviz http://www.graphviz.org/
Kig http://edu.kde.org/kig/
Inkscape http://inkscape.org/
Microsoft Equation Editor (aka MathType)
Excel/OpenOffice Calc
FXequation http://www.efofex.com/fxequation.php
LaTeX distributions such as MikTeX, LED, or TeXnicCenter. LaTeX editors such as LyX http://www.lyx.org/
SAS
R (programming language)
SPSS
JMP
MiniTAB
OpenEpi http://www.openepi.com/menu/openEpiMenu.htm
Stata
SciPy/Pylab + NumPy + Matplotlib
Euklid http://www.dynageo.de
ZuL http://zirkel.sourceforge.net/
GeoGebra
Geometer's Sketchpad
Cinderella http://www.cinderella.de/tiki-index.php
Software Archimedes Geo3D http://www.spatialgeometry.com/
Gnuplot
OpenDX
MuPaD
surf http://surf.sourceforge.net/
Maxima
C.A.R. Metal http://db-maths.nuxit.net/CaRMetal/index_en.html
MathCast http://mathcast.sourceforge.net/home.html
Uncommons Maths https://uncommons-maths.dev.java.net/
winplot
Mathomatic http://mathomatic.org/math/
ParaView http://www.paraview.org/
VisIt https://wci.llnl.gov/codes/visit/
Qualculate!
SymPy http://wiki.sympy.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.mathurl.com
PocketCAS, WinMo version http://pocketcas.com/?Download
PocketCAS, iphone version http://pocketcas.com/iphone