> The thing about Mathematica (and any other math product) is that it lets you increase the abstraction level of your thinking. The difference between Mathemat

> The thing about Mathematica (and any other math product) is that it lets you increase the abstraction level of your thinking. The difference between Mathematica and other environments is that in the latter, you ascend from the trivial to the abstract, hopefully learning the entire structure as you go, but with Mathematica, you're deposited on a mountaintop with no obvious pathway down. > That said, mathematica has a function to have it explain exactly what it did to solve a particular problem. Yes, but this doesn't work for the more advanced features. If it did, someone could simply copy down the conversion sequence and recode it for a different environment. As a result, Mathematica users are in the position of accepting results whose genesis is concealed.