Buying Program for Physics and Maths

[$id]

Hey guys,

I was considering buying this program. Does anybody have any good feedback or use it regularly?

i am currently 18 and studying in school but will be studying theoretical physics at university, Is it likely to be helpful with Physics and Maths in general?

thanks a lot

sid

 

[Galileo]

I use Maple as my CAS. Sometimes I don't have a calculator handy so I use Maple (overkill ).
It's handy if you want to make numerical approximations, make graphs (2D, 3D,vector fields,animations), check your answers, solve DE's etc.

IIRC, it's a bit expensive. If you're a student, I`m almost positive you can download it somewhere (legally) and get a campus-license from your university. It's probably 'only' Maple6 (I have), but suits my purpose.

Maple is capable of symbolic manipulation. Which means you can use expressions with arbitrary constants like a or b. Also, when you use, for example, $\pi$ in your expression. Maple will work with $\pi$ and not some approximation of $\pi$ like a calculator. It will only give the decimals when you ask for an approximation (you can specify the number of digits. 5,10,100 or more).

I've heard MatLab is the program for matrices, but Maple can deal with them as well. But, not as efficient and extensive as MatLab I gather.

What Maple doesn't do is providing step by step solutions. It can solve a difficult integral in a jiffy, but it will not show any steps.
Sometimes it can not find an 'exact' solution. I once had a limit which looked complex, but could be solved by a human (since the expression could be simplified by a substitution which a human could spot). Maple could not solve it, but after making the substitution manually, it could.

Those are my two cents. It's a nice program to have. I had fun illustrating how the terms of a Fourier series approximate the function. And plotting nonstationary wavefunctions was nice too. Didn't use it for much else though.

 

[dextercioby]

It will much more useful if you go into experimental physics...Lots of numbers there...Graphs,plots,statistical analysis...

Daniel.

P.S.I wonder if it can solve Einstein's equations and find the Friedmann-Lemaître solution...

 

[$id]

Anybody know where to get it cheap (Legally)

There is $99 US download avaliable but I am in UK

 

[Galileo]

Anybody know where to get it cheap (Legally)

There is $99 US download avaliable but I am in UK

Seriously, ask you faculty or studentmentor (or what have you) for a student edition supplied by your university.

 

[$id]

I am still in school, the maths department won't fancy spending money on this as number of students who will use this is handful. hence i will need to buy it outright,

 

[Crosson]

All of the CAS programs are fine, but once you use mathematica you can't turn back.

Sometimes it can not find an 'exact' solution. I once had a limit which looked complex, but could be solved by a human (since the expression could be simplified by a substitution which a human could spot). Maple could not solve it, but after making the substitution manually, it could.

This is exactly why mathematica is the best, it never let's me down.

Since I have had mathematica, it has lead me to try creative things that I never would have otherwise approached. I explored the electric field outside fractal charge distributions (looking for a tripole). I just wrote up a double infinite sum of some big nasty voltage calculation that I wouldn't touch analytically with a ten foot pole. No other cas would do anything significant, but mathematica reduced the summations to a simple closed form function.

 

[PerennialII]

All of the CAS programs are fine, but once you use mathematica you can't turn back.



This is exactly why mathematica is the best, it never let's me down.

Since I have had mathematica, it has lead me to try creative things that I never would have otherwise approached. I explored the electric field outside fractal charge distributions (looking for a tripole). I just wrote up a double infinite sum of some big nasty voltage calculation that I wouldn't touch analytically with a ten foot pole. No other cas would do anything significant, but mathematica reduced the summations to a simple closed form function.

Very much along the same lines ... and have been able to reduce time spent in implementations drastically with mathematica. In general I'd say get either mathematica or maple and then if you need/ can afford matlab.

 

[$id]

Price is the main thing here,

Any Ideas of places which sell these cheap online. US website is fine if it ships to UK.

 

[gazzo]

Mathematica seems to be cheaper... don't know about a site. Enquire at the local university? Even if you're still at school... you should still quality for a student edition should you not?

The other wolfram products aimed at students seem to be OK. Like err... calculation center ?
But might as well just get the real mckoy.