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Mathematica 6 Launched

Posted by kdawson on from the simulate-this dept.

Ed Pegg writes "Wolfram Research has just released Mathematica 6. That link, in addition to the usual 'dramatic breakthrough' material, has an amazing flash banner that simultaneously shows a thousand mathematical demonstrations all at once. The animations came from the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, a free service with 1200+ dynamically interactive examples of math, science, and physics, all with code. For the product itself, much is new or improved, with built-in math databases, improved visualizations, and more."

4 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Summarizing the summary by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "I don't know what this does but the pictures are cool"

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  2. Re:I'm torn... by Quarters · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What part of your problem would've been fixed if it had been open source, all other things being equal? Was your problem the licensing, the inferior Linux performance, or the fact that it would only reprocess workbooks? How would it being open source have fixed any of that? Even if it being OSS just meant that there was no licensing scheme that is only 1/3 of your listed problems (at best). Given that you were in such a hurry and that the code to do what Mathematica does is probably extremely complex I doubt you would've edited the code to fix problems #2 or #3. So, how exactly would OSS have helped you?

  3. Re:I'm torn... by Quarters · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I love it. I ask a serious question....a question of elaboration on the parent's post and I get marked a troll. Why? Solely because I broke the unspoken pact and questioned what OSS would've provided to solve this one person's particular problem. I dared to, even in this one instance, question the assumed superiority of OSS so that I could better understand how it would've helped. I set out to gain valid use-case data from which everyone could've learned and benefited. Instead, a group of moderators decided they needed to show their support of OSS, not by engaging in a debate of its merits, but by trying to bury my question...essentially burying their heads in the sand in the process.

    It's this mindset...this "OSS is holy....just because" group-think that keeps OSS from truly gaining traction with mainstream users. It's the community's insular nature, lack of interest in how software is actually used by people, and general "We know better, so there" attitude that keeps the whole concept sidelined.

    Marking my question as a troll might make the moderators feel like they've done something useful. All they've really done, though, is show their ignorance and their desire to not have to look at the real issues. They'd rather just hold on to their belief of "it's just better....because!"

  4. Re:I'm torn... by JBv · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I used Mathematica during my PhD thesis. It's a great piece of software that did save me a lot of time. Unfortunately, ever since I left that lab, I have no access to a Mathematica licences and I am not willing to spend the money on them just to re-visit some of the work I did back then. In a sense, part of my PhD work has a randsom equivalent to the purchase of a Mathematica licence.

    All I can say is that I learned my lesson. Since I finished my PhD work I have moved exclusively to linux and tried to limit commercial lockin as much as possible.