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Open Source Math Software For Education?

Posted by timothy on from the wading-through-it dept.

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?

12 of 605 comments (clear)

  1. Octave? by mvdw · · Score: 5, Informative

    What about octave (free Matlab clone)?

    1. Re:Octave? by hotchai · · Score: 5, Informative

      Octave is a really nice piece of software! Also check out Scilab.

    2. Re:Octave? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here's a link:

      http://www.octave.org/

      I've used Matlab extensively and can tell you that Octave and Matlab aren't perfectly compatible. However, a student who learns Octave can switch to Matlab without any effort whatsoever.

    3. Re:Octave? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
      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)?

      The guy's looking for a symbolic mathematics package. Why don't you recommend Excel for him why you're at it? Heavens.

    4. Re:Octave? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because Octave is actually Matlab compatible, and there are thousands of lines of Matlab code out there? Also, Octave has been around for some time. I discovered it in 1996 and has been using it ever since.

  2. R (GNU S) by Neil+Blender · · Score: 5, Informative

    R statistical language

    1. Re:R (GNU S) by DarkSarin · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dangit, you beat me to it!

      I was going to suggest R.

      To the person who claims it is a poor choice for High Schoolers, I disagree, especially if statistics is of interest. It forces you to actually THINK about what you are doing with your models instead of being able to run, willy nilly, any old analysis on any old data (vis-a-vis SPSS).

      It is also good because it is VERY robust in its data import capabilities (excel, spss, etc), and is very strong at doing correct analyses.

      There are some caveats:
      Need to program
      Need to be willing to really learn
      Poor documentation
      Memory intensive for large datasets.

      This last item needs some explanation: R, unlike other statistical packages, loads the entire data set into memory, and performs all analyses there, instead of accessing the disk more frequently. This results in large datasets taking some serious memory, especially once you start working on complex analyses. If you plan to be using 5,000+ observations (which isn't all that uncommon in some fields), you should plan on having a fairly beefy computer.

      The upside is that it can provide much more information than spss could ever hope for. Now, if someone would just finish the plugin for kalc or gnumeric that would allow direct access, that would be awesome.

      (For R afficianados who aren't aware, check out ESS-Emacs Speaks Statistics--it's great for unix coders, but unnecessary for win32 stats folks).

      --
      "We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
  3. Maxima by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Look at http://maxima.sourceforge.net/.

    1. Re:Maxima by willy134 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have played with Maxima a little bit. I think it is a decent peice of software. It started out as a government research app that was later open sourced. Unfortunately development is slow (if even existent) but on windows it did a fairly good/fast job of calculating funny integrals. They plotting features are decent also.

      It is much closer to mathematica than matlab. I don't know how it compares to mathcad.

      Hey it is free so at least give it a try.

      --
      Can you ping me now?... Good!
    2. Re:Maxima by RealAlaskan · · Score: 5, Informative
      I have played with Maxima a little bit. I think it is a decent peice of software. It started out as a government research app that was later open sourced. Unfortunately development is slow (if even existent)...

      It is being actively developed. While William Schelter was maintaining it (for 19 lonely years), development was very slow indeed. I gather that most of the work was done by him, and some of his graduate students. Since his death in 2001, a number of other people have come on board, and there is a lot of catching up to do.

      Some documentation has been rewritten, a great many bugs have been squashed, the package has been ported to several Lisps (yes, it does matter to users), there has been at least one new Emacs mode written for it, it can be used with Texmacs, and so on. Some of the people who are working on it are big names in their spheres, like Richard Fateman, who worked on the original Macsyma.

      Version 5.9.1 was released in September '04, and the next big step will be the GREAT SOURCE DOWNCASING. Maxima is so old that most of it is written in all caps. There is a lot to do to bring it into the 21st century, and most of what's being done right now is behind-the-scenes stuff.

      As you say, it's decent software now. It's fully usable, with a useful GUI for Windows (developed on Schelter's watch, as I recall). It is probably better for memory intensive work than Maple or Mathematica; that's what initially got me started using it.

      --
      See what I've been reading.
  4. GraphCalc is good by theteenager · · Score: 5, Informative

    GraphCalc is a good graphing program. It might not do everything in math, but it graphs pretty nicely.

  5. Quantian article by Ed+Pegg · · Score: 5, Informative
    I own the quantian.org domain. The following is from my article on the Quantian Distribution. Here is a brief run down of links, programs, and other goodies in Quantian.