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Poll:Mathematica vs Maple

Chaotic42

Chaotic42

Lifer
I'm just curious.

I downloaded the trial version, and it only worked for about an hour before I closed it and it would never open again. 😉

Apparently it's like $1700 unless I send them my student ID, in which case the price drops to $139.

Do you guys think it's worth $139?

Edit: Lots of people have been saying that Maple is better, and I was wondering what everyone else thinks.
 
i had to use it for 4 years, i hate that damn program

MAPLE is 11ty billionx better

and its worth it if you need to use it every day
 
Originally posted by: MichaelD
wow. It sounds like a program that does your homework for you. Ah, the wonders of Teh Intarweb.
Click to expand...

yea it will solve anything you toss at it, that is if you can get the correct syntax of the crap figured out
 
I use it everyday this summer for my calc II class. I also used it everyday when I took the class last fall 😛 They give it free to all students at my school, have it on all my computers. Having taken the same class twice, I could do most mathematic commands in my sleep it feels like. If you have to pay for it, its probaly worth it, I did end up using it in other classes like stats...
 
Originally posted by: Anubis
yes someone else that has seen the light
Click to expand...
How is it better? I must admit that in the hour I used it, I didn't become a fan of the Mathematica interface or command structure, but it's not too much to learn it.

I'll be getting my Associate's in mathematics for sure, with a ~99% probability of continuing on to a BS, then hopefully to a PhD eventually.

One step at a time though, Calc I starts Aug 20 at 10am. 😉

I've personally studied up to Calc II or III, I'm not sure exactly where my knowledge lies.
 
its easier to use for 1 thing, IMO the commands are eaiser, same command line kinda thing

it graphs 10x better then mathmatica, i colored plots and such

it worked better for theroticial physics, and any other class that had multy variable time based wquations

and it didnt crash as much
 
Originally posted by: Anubis
and it didnt crash as much
Click to expand...
Well, I can vouch for Mathematica crashing a lot. I tried to evaluate 99^99^3 and copy the results.

I wasn't pretty. I don't know if that's Mathematica's fault, but the normal UI won't even start up, so something isn't righ.
 
I've only taken up to a differential equations class, but our teacher taught us how to use Maple and it was friggin' sweet. I've played around with Mathematica, too, but not knowing how to use it I couldn't really compare it to Maple. However, I figure if my teacher used Maple that may say something in itself. I preferred Maple's interface, anyway.
 
I've never used Matlab, but there's actually a class at UC Berkeley (where I'm going) on how to use it, so I assume it's probably pretty powerful as well. I just can't comment due to lack of experience, but I'd like to see how people feel about it (to see if I should bother getting/using it).
 
Originally posted by: Chaotic42
Originally posted by: Anubis
and it didnt crash as much
Click to expand...
Well, I can vouch for Mathematica crashing a lot. I tried to evaluate 99^99^3 and copy the results.

I wasn't pretty. I don't know if that's Mathematica's fault, but the normal UI won't even start up, so something isn't righ.
Click to expand...
Maple didn't crash 😛
505420432993189273690559605025518232631478393682568454506508546059575954826584120432109\
171146049689183443450608523576528358073703020772897654601493677995025456010212907282393\
461901684683480053506879952061223786638076207804148711987656954710671415172796270824155\
135093553741052886241677602684853521931975771011248497869567823107802459064823024751616\
935950589196776998496388249712279873043243694324489769145934863022723901524061544516424\
003923941699736115021215842074649483476620771363877402789130642067580379592900939880743\
45357133920069149564360382372822729047473691785933696281593262900469699
 
Originally posted by: trek
Maple didn't crash 😛
505420432993189273690559605025518232631478393682568454506508546059575954826584120432109\
171146049689183443450608523576528358073703020772897654601493677995025456010212907282393\
461901684683480053506879952061223786638076207804148711987656954710671415172796270824155\
135093553741052886241677602684853521931975771011248497869567823107802459064823024751616\
935950589196776998496388249712279873043243694324489769145934863022723901524061544516424\
003923941699736115021215842074649483476620771363877402789130642067580379592900939880743\
45357133920069149564360382372822729047473691785933696281593262900469699
Click to expand...

Times ten raised to the what? The answer should have about 9702990 digits in it or so.
 
Originally posted by: helpme
Nobody has mentioned Matlab yet?
Click to expand...

Matlab is used for numerical computation.
Maple is mainly a symbolic computation software. I used to work at Maplesoft a while ago. I've never used Mathematica, but from what I've read Maple is significantly more powerful when solving PDEs and ODEs.
So I voted Maple. Besides you can write alot of fun little applets in Maple now, they have funky programs that model cool things

MapleApps
 
Mathematica. The profs in my physics department who do mathematical physics swear by mathematica and I like it as well. I've used both mathematica and maple and here's what I have to say:

Maple: slightly better with symbolic manipulation. It's a bit easier to use that way.
Mathematica: MUCH better with data sets and numerical computations.

Get maple if you're in math and want it to do your homework for you. Get mathematica if you're in physics and want to do some work.
 
I couldn't give you a fair answer, unless you told me what you were using them for. If it's for simple stuff like Calculus, then either is fine, but apparently more people like Maple for the simple things.. But, once beyond calculus, I prefer mathematica by a large margin.
 
Maple is the most user friendly program. Mathematica isn't so friendly...but it's a bit more powerful/faster. MATLAB is probably the best of them all...but I think it's also the most hateful of its users.
 
It's been a long time since I used them. I didn't find Mathematica UI friendly. I liked Maple's ability to generate results in TeX.

Matlab (includes Maple) is very popular in engineering schools (undergraduate).
 
Originally posted by: eLiu
Maple is the most user friendly program. Mathematica isn't so friendly...but it's a bit more powerful/faster. MATLAB is probably the best of them all...but I think it's also the most hateful of its users.
Click to expand...

Matlab is a different beast entirely. Matlab is by far the best tool for numerical computation and it has a ton of libraries that are great for engineers. FWIW, Matlab's symbolic manipulation library actually uses Maple's engine. Also, Matlab has a bunch of C libraries so you can integrate it into another program.

For my uses:
Need to solve symbolic problem: Maple
Need to solve numerical problem: Matlab
 
What am I going to be doing with it?

Playing, mostly. I guess there will be some point where I require the program, but I learn pretty well from just playing with programs.
 
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