Mathematica

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Update: I've gone way over time ... and have to stop now. Thanks everyone for some very interesting questions!

Looking forward to being here at 8:30 pm ET Monday to talk about my recent essay: "Seeking the Productive Life: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure".

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Edit: Signing off now. Thanks for all the great questions. Sorry I couldn't get to all the off-topic ones :) Look forward to another AMA....

I don't really understand how they can charge students and Hobby mathematicians so much money. I get that enterprise licensenses as with any software will be more expensive since companies can and do pay more for them. I would be ready to Pay 50 to 70 Bucks for Premium software, but charging already broke students 179 Bucks seems insane to me. Meanwhile companies like Autodesk and MathWorks give away their Products to Students for free.For a lot of students its either Paying rent or buying the software that they need.

I am really not a big fan of Piracy, in the end its still breaking the law, but its cases like these where you really start to sympathize with them.

[edit]: Since there were a lot of suggestions to just get it from my Uni, I wanted to clarify things a bit. At my University Mathematica is only available for RWTH employees. As far as I know the only free "Math Software" available to students is Matlab. There are other Programs such as Maple available at a reduced price (80€ for Maple). Mathematica is not free for students neither is it available at a reduced price.
Some people have suggested getting a Raspberry Pi and accesing Mathematica through it. That I will look into as well.

Maple has come a long way, and I have not seen any recent comparisons. What’s the benefits of using one over the other?

I've been reading a bit about symbolic math systems for python (like SymPy or Cadabra) and also Wolfram Mathematica and I've been wondering what's the best tool? I mainly do stuff with field theory so I thought that Cadabra may be it, but it seems like nobody actually uses it, so I'm in doubt if that's the best choice or nah.

Maybe somebody has a better alternative, idk. Any help is appreciated.

Learning mathematica for my master's thesis is making me want to gauge my eyes out. Are there any tips you would give an experienced python programmer on how to learn mathematica? My master's thesis is on mathematical physics so I also have a nice math foundation.

For example, I feel very uneasy with working with undefined functions and all these 'substitution rules'. I think I'm just not used to such 'high level' software (and python is extremely high level). I don't like not knowing with which kind of objects I'm dealing with.

Have you ever had to make this kind of step? How was your experience like?

I'm interested in the article "The Set of Nonlinearity of a Convex Piecewise-Linear Function" by Chandler Davis, which should have been published in Scripta Mathematica 1959, pages 219 - 228.

I may be just bad in searching, but I'have been extensively googling last few months, and I start to think that the article doesn't exist or has been badly cited in the publication I got it from. So if you happen to know, where could I find it, I'd be gratefull to you. I have access to various databases from uni, but I don't know ho to use them effectively.

Hey everyone!

I was wondering if someone had done the work already and "translated" Principia Mathematica by Russel and Whitehead into modern math notation, as the notation used is uneasy on the eyes.

If not, I'd want to do it as a collaborative project on GitHub.

Edit: Mistype

I've been reading a bit about symbolic math systems for python (like SymPy or Cadabra) and also Wolfram Mathematica and I've been wondering what's the best tool? I mainly do stuff with field theory so I thought that Cadabra may be it, but it seems like nobody actually uses it, so I'm in doubt if that's the best choice or nah.

Maybe somebody has a better alternative, idk. Any help is appreciated.

I use Home edition of Mathematica from time to time, and just got a Wolfram email which said:

"In the near future, upgrades for Mathematica will be available only as part of a subscription to your license, as we will no longer offer upgrade-only purchases. This is the last opportunity to simply upgrade with no subscription required."

On Mac this is a real problem because older versions of Mathematica stop working after a few OS updates. E.g. the latest version of macOS (14, Sonoma) requires Mathematica 13.3 or later.

Its a good tool, but I don't use it very often, not enough to justify an annual subscription.

I'll be sad to say goodbye to Mathematica but it seems to be waving its handkerchief from the train window.