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Open Source Math Software For Education?
Rui Carmo writes "Now here's something you don't get asked every day, but which a friend happens to need for her kids: If you had to suggest Open-Source software for mathematics - somewhere from high-school to freshman level, and not merely for 'pure' mathematics, but also applicable to physics and statistics (the kids are considering going into Applied Maths and Engineering), what would you point people toward, assuming they have access to both Linux and Windows? I know this is a niche thing and that there is nothing out there that even comes close to Wolfram's excellent Mathematica (which I used on my old NeXTCube), but surely something along the lines of (or simpler than) Calculation Center exists?" The Knoppix-based Quantian might be a good place to start; what math software do you recommend?
What about octave (free Matlab clone)?
R statistical language
Look at http://maxima.sourceforge.net/.
GraphCalc is a good graphing program. It might not do everything in math, but it graphs pretty nicely.
Check out Maxima, my Calculus 2 teacher tries to give it a plug in class about every week. Its actually very powerful. http://maxima.sourceforge.net/ http://www.ma.utexas.edu/maxima.html
As an avid Matlab user, octave would be a good realm for lower dimensional mathematics. But, there's a nice foundation being set for python as an interpretive math environment. For the matlab lackies, matplotlib provides Matlab-like plotting support. For windows, grab the enthought compilation -- for linux, piecemeal together your environment starting with SciPy, MayaVi, and Matplotlib.
and now back to the fallout shelter...
The UofA has some great titles, from rurfc1, the r u ready for calculus program, to slopes and other diffeq titles. All free, all good.
/ ua sft.html
The rur series is GOLD! I've installed in on all computer I own and made CDs just because its the kind of thing some new math dept head could take off the website and you'll never see it again.
http://math.arizona.edu/~www_main_2002/software
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
LOL, what kind of math did you take in High School? I was taking A.P. classes in High School.
So was I. I even got a 5 on the AP test (like it ever mattered). Mathcad was a drag. Mathematica would have been hell. We spent so much time dicking around with the computers, we could probably have covered half a chapter in that time! Computers add so much complexity that they are really only a benefit for very large problems, like CFD over an airplane wing. High school students really don't need a computer, unless the class is specifically for programming, which is not math (don't confuse programming with Comp Sci, please).
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
I'm a high school senior and I would love to have software like this.
There are times in my high school calculus course where I would love to be able to see practical applications of the things I learn in class. Or get extra help on a difficult concept I didn't quite understand in class.
I've tried to use recouces like wikipedia, open course ware (though MIT is a bit out of my leauge), and Sparknotes; but, its hard to learn a concept without a good explanation and instruction.
In conclusion, software that could achually teach or at least tutor math would be a godsend to me and thousands of other confused math students.
P.S. Please don't complain to me about getting better math teachers - thats an issue you'd have to take up with the union. Also, bad students isn't always their fault.
I didn't get that auto-URL thing right, here it is: http://cow.math.temple.edu/
Maybe one of these could be interesting for you:
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Maxima 5.9.0
Maxima is a fairly complete computer algebra system with an emphasis on symbolic computation.
Octave 2.1.42
GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with Matlab. It may also be used as a batch-oriented language.
R 1.8.0
R is `GNU S' - A language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. R is similar to the award-winning S system, which was developed at Bell Laboratories by John Chambers et al. It provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques (linear and nonlinear modelling, statistical tests, time series analysis, classification, clustering,
Scilab 2.6
Scilab is a scientific software package for numerical computations in a user-friendly environment.
Gnuplot 3.7.x
gnuplot is a command-driven interactive function plotting program. It can be used to plot functions and data points in both two- and three-dimensional plots in many different formats, and will accommodate many of the needs of today's scientists for graphic data representation.
Source: http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/classes/en/sciences.html
Disclaimer: I work for maple, as a developer but not in R&D. I speak from my knowledge of this company but I'm sure the others have similar situations.
The problem with OSS for something like a mathematics package (especially a package with symbolics) is they contain IP obtained with research partnerships with institutions. You won't find a OSS solution that competes with any of the big 3 (Maple, Matlab and Mathematica) because the the algorithms for symbolics and so forth are just too complex and important as IP to the companies.
All 3 of the packages I believe/know have much reduced student pricing ($100 USD for a downloadable on Mac, Linux or Win) and many of the schools in North America either have a partnership or you can obtain the software directly from your department. Also many of the calculus texts include 4 or 8 month trial versions.
I know this doesn't help much and it is unfortunate that you can't obtain OSS alternatives for software that has a educational purpose, but on the otherside with out the 1000's of freshman in Calc101 I wouldn't have a salary.
R is actually better than a lot of non open source out there. I actually prefer it over S, SPSS, and mini-tab(I haven't used any other major stats software).
There is even a nifty web interface. Check out Rweb
It can be done by someone who can do arithmetic---and knows how. I don't know how, but I know Newton's method of root solving, so I can come up with a way quickly.
To find the cube root of c (which I'll call x), we need to solve x^3 - c = 0. We can do this by coming up with a guess t[0] and recursively saying that t[n+1] = t[n] - (x^3-c)/(3x^2).
I might have learned this in school, but I would have forgotten it. I'd say I was better served by understanding of concepts than overemphasis on calculation.
Oh, geez, does no one understand the difference between a symbolic mathematics package (like Mathematica, Maple, or Calculation Center) and a numerical mathematics package (like Octave and Matlab)?
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There might not be such a great difference in functionality between Mathematic/Maple and Matlab, if you have the symbolic math toolbox (although the UI is totally different
Of course, I don't think Octave has a symbolic math toolbox or equivalent at present
and for education purposes there is the Statistical Lab http://www.statistiklabor.de/ - a working and learning environment designed for elementary studies in statistics. statistical engine is R. freeware at the moment, open source later next year...
Use Maxima. It does symbolic math very well. And if you're over in Linux, you can use Maxima as a plugin for TeXmacs for really pretty mathematical documents.
I always site Octave and Maxima when people ask about math software. One for numeric and one for symbolic.
I wrote my PhD thesis using Axiom's source - Axiom has had c. 300 man-years work done on it. It is an unbelievable piece of work.
(It started in the early 1970's at IBM and was called Scratchpad, later Scratchpad 2 before being "sold" to NAG and rebranded).
Axiom 2 included a new compiler and a new language called Aldor (which was going to be called A# but apparently Sharp objected to the name. WTF about C# then?) and ran on other platforms than AIX 3.x. Solaris, Irix and in the end even Win32.
Unlike the "M'n'M" systems (Maple, Mathematica, etc). it is strongly typed and has its roots in Category theory and/or Universal Algebra - which is pretty much a necessity for and Algebra system to even make any sense. (OK, that's a loaded point - obviously Maple is a very good product without this basis).
Some things are currently missing from Axiom: Aldor - the re-implementation of Axiom's language by Pete Broadberry et al.; HyperTex - the online documentation browser with hyperlinks predating HTML! which are all loaded from the source files); and I believe the pretty GUI bits for graphs, 3D trefoil knots, etc.
Debian and Ubuntu users can just download it, the rest of us have to build it. (It takes about 2 hours on my 1133MHz box).
It is good. If you can grab a copy of Jenks and Sutor's manual then even better.
Bus error in your favour. Collect 200kB