Re:Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica
by logicchains on Thursday June 30, 2022 @03:25AM
(#31929631)
>I just needed an algebra scratchpad, and Symbolics was.. barren. and uninviting. I thought of reaching for Mathematica but resorted to pencil and paper, like a barbarian.
Have you tried Maxima? It seems more ergonomic.
Re:Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica
by anthk on Thursday June 30, 2022 @07:35AM
(#31931124)
I use Maxima on a Atom N270 netbook. It works greatly, fast and usable. Gnuplot for plotting, and I'm done.
Re:Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica
by bowsamic on Thursday June 30, 2022 @03:37AM
(#31929697)
Sympy is good as a scratchpad I think. For my case I needed minimal state space realisations of MIMO transfer matrices. In mathematica this is just two functions. Implementing this in Python could take months
Re:Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica
by sfriedr on Thursday June 30, 2022 @03:28AM
(#31929646)
> I thought of reaching for Mathematica but resorted to pencil and paper, like a barbarian.
A very computer-science perspective with the obligatory dose of hubris.
Pencil and paper is continuing to serve a much older, much more consolidated discipline (mathematics) well for... ever since paper was invented.
Re:Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica
by sterlind on Thursday June 30, 2022 @04:00AM
(#31929840)
the barbarian bit was tongue-in-cheek. it's just that symbolic algebra is one of those old-school, classic use cases for computers, like playing chess or guiding missiles or scheduling routes. I enjoy those kinds of moments.
same deal with solvers more generally. the coin-or stuff (e.g. Cbc) is slow and buggy, Cplex and Gurobi are far better but very expensive. where are the PhDs in this field? what are they building?