Return to this week's Bulletin

 

 

07 September 2001

A New Product

by George Hrabovsky, President, MAST

News from MAST

Hello again. In this column I will be discussing a new product, The Mathematical Explorer, from Wolfram Research, the makers of Mathematica.

Before I get to that I will tell you the exciting news from MAST. We have developed a nearly complete electronics laboratory, and in the next week or so we will have completed a microbiology laboratory! Since these occupy the same space they can't be used at the same time, but what the heck!


The downside is that the water quility testing experiments will be stopping for the foreseeable future due to unforseen problems.

The Mathematical Explorer

I am going to begin by telling what Mathematical Explorer is not. It is not Mathematica. For those of us with a lot of experience in Mathematica, Mathematical Explorer is frustrating to use. That is the good news for those of you who will want to use it; everything it can do Mathematica does in the same way. If you use Mathematica now there is no reason to get Mathematical Explorer.


If you do not currently use Mathematica, then I recommend this product. It is only about $80 as opposed to the standard $1,200 for Mathematica. Now, let me point out some very nice features:

This system can be used like a very large graphing calculator. It has an extensive help system online that is very useful.

It is fully capable of number crunching. Complicated calculations can be performed with ease.

It is fully capable of symbolic calculation. Using a system of interactive pallettes you can quickly build algebraic expressions that look like those you would write down on paper. The system can expand, factor, and simplify expressions, solve equations, and perform all of the operations of calculus.

The graphical capabilities of Mathematica plotting are available, so you can produce normalplots, such as this,

3D"[Graphics:Images/index_gr_1.gif]"

3D"[Graphics:Images/index_gr_2.gif]"

Or you can do three-dimensional plots such as this,

3D"[Graphics:Images/index_gr_3.gif]"

3D"[Graphics:Images/index_gr_4.gif]"

You can save your work as a Mathematica-style file called a notebook. This allows you to use the system as a scratch-pad for doing quick work, or as a notebook for doing more extensive work. One complaint that I do have is that, unlike Mathematica, you cannot save files as HTML. I think this was a bad decision. On the other hand this allows you to view any Mathematica notebook (the program will automatically convert the notebook to the style used in Explorer).

The system is programmable and uses the same programming elements that allow you to create new functions in Mathematica.

The existing functions and the ability to do programming within a notebook allow the amateur scientist to quicky do almost every mathematical operation. Certainly this system can handle anything from an undergraduate program in mathematics (or any  science, for that matter).

Being fairly cheap and easy to use, I can recommend this software to anyone interested in powerful software for mathematical studies. Using a system like this has many possible uses:

To follow along with a derivation in a book to make sure everything said is true. If you get a result not in the book, you can then explore the source of the deviation.

Checking your existing work for errors. Do not automatically assume that the software is right, if there is a discrepancy between what you have done and what the computer has done, make sure that the answers are not the same even though they are in different forms.

The development of theoretical models, proofs, derivations, and computational models.

Make no mistake about it, this is a powerful system. It is not as powerful as Mathematica. It is also less than 10% of the price of Mathematica. I think it is a good buy. Have fun!

Editor's note: Mathematical Explorer is now available from the SAS online store!

Converted by Mathematica      September 6, 2001.