11 ms·

Mathics – A free, light-weight alternative to Mathematica

360 points by dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

O_H_E 8y ago
I would like to take this amazing opportunity to tell anyone who doesn't know about WolframAlpha to go give it a shot. Shortest, simplest description I can give is that it is the best AI-less science-heavy digital brain out there. Or as Wikipedia puts it "a computational knowledge engine". https://wolframalpha.com https://wolframalpha.com Edit: apparently Siri and Alexa sometimes query WolframAlpha.
- wjsetzer 8y ago
  While Wolfram alpha got me through Cal 2, why are you plugging it here?
  - slavik81 8y ago
    WolframAlpha includes a lot of Mathematica features and many uses are free-as-in-beer. For example,it can evaluate Mathematica expressions like Series[x - n Sin[x], {x,0,5}]. http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Series%5Bx+-+n+Sin%5Bx%5D%2C+%7Bx%2C0%2C5%7D%5D http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Series%5Bx+-+n+Sin%5Bx%5D...
- starpilot 8y ago
  There's this search engine called Google too, it's really accurate.
- zwegner 8y ago
  And I'd like to plug my favorite twitter account, Wolfram|Alpha Can't: https://mobile.twitter.com/wacnt/ https://mobile.twitter.com/wacnt/ It's a collection of queries that an AI could answer in theory, but are (probably) far beyond current technology. The questions are generally just super interesting. Here's a few recent samples: "derivative of the shore length of Tasmania with respect to ocean depth" "total area enclosed by whole notes in a typical printing of the Brandenburg Concertos" "total duration of watch adjustments made by people changing time zones per day, if everyone had a watch and adjusted it" "volume of ink saved by the Times per year if they switched to American spelling"
  - harshreality 8y ago
    I think those questions are just an attempt to be silly. Most of those questions are poorly specified, if you think about them, or they're trick questions with trivial answers (like zero) in some cases. Then there's the occasional question that could be answered, not just by some future AI, but even current WolframAlpha if it had the right dataset. Like this: > minimum distance between a place with a 2-letter name and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Thought it's unclear if the intent is great-circle distance or 3d distance. If there's any doubt that plenty of these are intended to be silly questions... > focal length of the Eye of Sauron
    - zwegner 8y ago
      They're certainly meant to be entertaining. I really don't think they're meant purely as jokes, though. And which are the trick questions with trivial answers? I can't recall seeing any of those. Any question that is poorly specified can generally be augmented with reasonable assumptions or approximations, so that an AI could potentially give an answer. W|A is a natural language interface after all, and seeing all the "W|A can" posts on the account shows that it can certainly answer questions that don't have a precise mathematical definition. The intent behind each question is usually clear to me, and to have an AI that is useful to humans, we expect the AI to infer this intent and make reasonable assumptions. Even "focal length of the Eye of Sauron" could conceivably be given a rough answer from estimates of the eye's geometry (either from descriptions in the books, or a visual comparison with other objects of approximately-known size in the movie). The interesting part of the account IMO is thinking through how a hypothetical AI might answer each question. Take the latest question, "derivative of the shore length of Tasmania with respect to ocean depth". This is poorly specified in that "Tasmania" only exists for ocean depths that are low enough to not completely cover it and high enough to not have another land mass connect to it, and I'm sure there's tons of other assumptions that humans would implicitly make in answering a question like that. But the topography of the Earth is approximately known, and I can see how a rough answer could be calculated. Thinking through these assumptions, and comparing current technology with what we'd expect from an AGI, is quite illuminating, and is what makes that Twitter account so awesome IMO.
- edjroot 8y ago
  You can also get a few extra features on the mobile app, such as step-by-step solutions, if you pay a very small, one-time value (not sure how much).
ErotemeObelus 8y ago
Be prepared to have Stephen Wolfram pull all the stops in order to destroy your project. He didn't get rich by letting free competition flourish you know. EDIT: I downloaded the source just in case the author receives an offer he can't refuse.
- techgipper 8y ago
  The developer works at Wolfram, just FYI. https://medium.com/@poeschko https://medium.com/@poeschko
  - ErotemeObelus 8y ago
    He should double-check his contract to see if there's an "anything you do either inside or outside of Wolfram Inc. is automatically our property" clause. Stephen Wolfram knows about this. He just hasn't taken action yet.
    - techgipper 8y ago
      So, he's just been sitting around for several years just waiting to "take action" ... doesn't really make sense. I'd also like to think that Jan Poeschko is smart enough to read a contract.
      - steve19 8y ago
        It's all well and good until someone forks it and tries to compete with mathamatica.
        techgipper 8y ago
        Is that a dare? :)
        jVinc 8y ago
        That's like saying Apple should be afraid someone straps a microphone to a raspberry pi and starts competing with the iPhone.
matt2019 8y ago
Tangential, but reminds me of Stephen Wolfram's story of how it got the name Mathematica. It was actually Steve Jobs's idea: "Over the months after our first meeting, I had all sorts of interactions with Steve about Mathematica. Actually, it wasn’t yet called Mathematica then … For a while he wouldn’t suggest anything. But then one day he said to me: 'You should call it Mathematica.' … he told me his theory for a name was to start from the generic term for something, then romanticize it." (Wolfram, Idea Makers)
- jweir 8y ago
  Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica - Isaac Newton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Principia_Mathematica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Pri...
  - matt2019 8y ago
    While I have this book in front of me: "all sorts of people were telling me that I needed to put quotes on the back cover of the book [A New Kind of Science] ... Steve said, 'Isaac Newton didn't have back-cover quotes; why do you want them?'"
    - tom_ 8y ago
      This reminds me of one of my favourite Ayn Rand quotes: after being asked to shorten John Galt's (interminable, 70-odd-page, tiny print) speech in Atlas Shrugged - "Would you cut the Bible?"!
- szemet 8y ago
  > then romanticize it You mean romanize? And not just on the surface (latin alphabet), but even using the actual word from latin (which is already romanized greek I guess) and of course all the related living languages... edit: I always felt strange naming a software exactly the same name (in many language) as the field it operates in. Like naming a music creation software Music, or a biology related software Biology, etc. It is like equates the software with the whole field, suggesting that there is no difference between the software and its disclipine. It is a marketing trick that have a bit of bragging side, but of course it is common pattern, e.g: https://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Am-Football-Zlatan-Ibrahimovic/dp/024129715X https://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Am-Football-Zlatan-Ibrahimovic/dp...
rolleTx 8y ago
If it is light-weight why don't they make web-app like Wolfram Alpha. I want to see an alternative to that.
- thearn4 8y ago
  SymPy Gamma (https://gamma.sympy.org/input/?i=integrate+x%5E2 https://gamma.sympy.org/input/?i=integrate+x%5E2) sort of fits as an alternative, though it's not very good at parsing general questions/expressions.
  - codetrotter 8y ago
    Woah! That is very cool indeed. Time to start using SymPy Gamma instead of Wolfram|Alpha. Surprising that their GitHub repo has so few stars. Only 400 stars at the time of this writing. I mean, 400 stars is respectable of course, but seeing how cool this is I think they ought to have a lot more stars.
    - snazz 8y ago
      It even renders equations and graphs not as pixelated bitmaps! I should do this more often to avoid squinting while WolframAlpha-ing.
    - VvR-Ox 8y ago
      Just wanted to give a star but I saw the Google-junk and will wait until I know how you need to use Google stuff to use it because I've never read enough about GAE.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- corysama 8y ago
  In big, bold text in the beginning of the description is the header for "Use Mathics online"
  - 8y ago
wjsetzer 8y ago
I haven't had a lot of time to dig through the docs yet (also, I think your certificate is expired, btw), but this seems like a great alternative to Mathematica and the like. This is definitely a project I can get behind.
- groovybits 8y ago
  Can confirm, the certificate for angusgriffith.com is expired.
  - sn6uv 8y ago
    Just renewed it (not that it'll survive the HN hug of death). It's been a few years since I've touched that website.
jhbadger 8y ago
This is a cute little project that can be deployed anywhere with pip install mathics -- I even have it on my android phone (under Termux)! It can't really compete with either Mathematica or Sage, but both are multi-gigabyte programs. Unfortunately the Jupyter kernel IMathics doesn't seem to work with the current release, although it does come with its own notebook support.
abc_lisper 8y ago
Cert expired.
- sn6uv 8y ago
  Just renewed it
  - abc_lisper 8y ago
    Thanks!
abawany 8y ago
Somewhat unrelated but I would like to also mention Maxima (http://maxima.sourceforge.net/ http://maxima.sourceforge.net/), which used to be maintained by the late Dr. Schelter and is still updated. Here is a link to an old comparison between it and Mathematica: https://luckytoilet.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/beginners-comparison-of-computer-algebra-systems-mathematica-maxima-maple/ https://luckytoilet.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/beginners-compa... .
- gnufx 8y ago
  It could be related though Fateman's latest Mockmma, linked from https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/ https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/. (He got a legal threat from Wolfram over the original version long ago.) Other free general symbolic algebra systems are available, of course, like the venerable Reduce and Axiom.
  - enriquto 8y ago
    I used to use mockmma a lot as an undergraduate, because it started much faster than mathematica and it could run exactly the same programs. I wonder why mathics does not keep exact compatibility of the language.
  - pfortuny 8y ago
    Fateman was (is?) one of the main contributors!to maxima. Quite a helpful guy, also.
    - gnufx 8y ago
      Per Fateman's page, he worked on Macsyma (which was eventually freed as Macsyma) at least from the early '70s, probably late '60s. REDUCE is a similar age.
xrd 8y ago
Came here hoping for a discussion of the project itself but this is all information about Mathematica or the fact that the developer who started it now works there. Does anyone have an opinion on the software itself linked here?
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  I'm going through the exampleas and apart from some minor issues it looks like it's doing what it's supposed to do.
brian_herman__ 8y ago
Author of the program uses let’s encrypt and the ssl certificate is expired for the documentation... https://mathics.angusgriffith.com/doc/ https://mathics.angusgriffith.com/doc/
- sn6uv 8y ago
  Just renewed it
dang 8y ago
A discussion from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11459186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11459186
godelski 8y ago
This needs examples front and center. Seriously, why is this not more common? When I go to your landing page I want to see how awesome your thing is. A few examples is all it takes. Show me something like this In[6]:= Derivative[1][Sin] Out[6]= Cos[#1]& In[7]:= Derivative[2][Sin] Out[7]=-Sin[#1]& Don't make me go to documentation. Also don't compare it to Mathematica if it isn't as intuitive as Mathematica (seriously, it is wildly popular because simple things you don't have to look up. It works like you expect. There was a lot of planning to make it this way. People note the "Zen" of Mathematica). Here's an example of where Mathics is non-intuitive (besides if you remove the [1] from the above example) n[13]:= x = 5 Out[13]= 5 In[14]:= Derivative[1][x^2] Out[14]= 25' In[15]:= f[x] := x^2 In[16]:= Derivative[1][f] Out[16]= 2 #1& In[17]:= f'[x] Out[17]= 10 I know no system is perfect, but try to sell me on your idea before I go through your documentation and get frustrated that it doesn't work like the thing you compare it to.
- sn6uv 8y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, the web UI does have a gallery link [0] with a few interactive examples [1]. I agree though, a screenshot like this would be a good addition to the homepage. [0] https://pasteboard.co/IdIaJNo.png https://pasteboard.co/IdIaJNo.png [1] https://pasteboard.co/IdIc7dc.png https://pasteboard.co/IdIc7dc.png
  - godelski 8y ago
    I don't think that first image helps but that second image is great. That gets me excited and makes it look intuitive. Seriously, put that on the landing page. Edit: Also that first example (from [1]) doesn't work for me In[1]:= 1 + 2 - x * 3 x / y Out[1]= 3 - 3 x ^ 2 / y Is this a difference in the cli? I also notice I can't get any graphics there. No connection to matplotlib? In[3]:= Plot[{Sin[x], Cos[x], Tan[x]}, {x, -3Pi, 3Pi}] Out[3]= -Graphics-
  - dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
    Thanks a lot for your great work! I installed mathics locally and the translate/sierpinski examples from the gallery don't seem to work. Do you have an idea why?
syockit 8y ago
Sometimes I confuse the meaning of light-weight to be something that "does simple thing quickly" instead of "easy to setup". The last time I played with Mathics (maybe 2 years ago) it was still much, much slower than Sympy.
- axelclk 8y ago
  The split between SymPy functions and Mathics wrappers around these functions, together with the pattern matching is probably responsible for the slower system. Therefore in the Symja project[0] we try to implement it all together in one (Java) library. Mathematica syntax can be tested in the MMA Console[1], but the documentation of the functions [2] is in the "normally used Symja syntax", which is much easier to use for the "common calculator user". [0] https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library [1] https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library/wiki/MMA-console-usage https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library/wiki/MMA-conso... [2] https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library/tree/master/symja_android_library/doc/functions https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library/tree/master/sy...

360 points by dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

I would like to take this amazing opportunity to tell anyone who doesn't know about WolframAlpha to go give it a shot. Shortest, simplest description I can give is that it is the best AI-less science-heavy digital brain out there. Or as Wikipedia puts it "a computational knowledge engine". https://wolframalpha.com https://wolframalpha.com Edit: apparently Siri and Alexa sometimes query WolframAlpha.

wjsetzer 8y ago
While Wolfram alpha got me through Cal 2, why are you plugging it here?
- slavik81 8y ago
  WolframAlpha includes a lot of Mathematica features and many uses are free-as-in-beer. For example,it can evaluate Mathematica expressions like Series[x - n Sin[x], {x,0,5}]. http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Series%5Bx+-+n+Sin%5Bx%5D%2C+%7Bx%2C0%2C5%7D%5D http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Series%5Bx+-+n+Sin%5Bx%5D...
starpilot 8y ago
There's this search engine called Google too, it's really accurate.
zwegner 8y ago
And I'd like to plug my favorite twitter account, Wolfram|Alpha Can't: https://mobile.twitter.com/wacnt/ https://mobile.twitter.com/wacnt/ It's a collection of queries that an AI could answer in theory, but are (probably) far beyond current technology. The questions are generally just super interesting. Here's a few recent samples: "derivative of the shore length of Tasmania with respect to ocean depth" "total area enclosed by whole notes in a typical printing of the Brandenburg Concertos" "total duration of watch adjustments made by people changing time zones per day, if everyone had a watch and adjusted it" "volume of ink saved by the Times per year if they switched to American spelling"
- harshreality 8y ago
  I think those questions are just an attempt to be silly. Most of those questions are poorly specified, if you think about them, or they're trick questions with trivial answers (like zero) in some cases. Then there's the occasional question that could be answered, not just by some future AI, but even current WolframAlpha if it had the right dataset. Like this: > minimum distance between a place with a 2-letter name and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Thought it's unclear if the intent is great-circle distance or 3d distance. If there's any doubt that plenty of these are intended to be silly questions... > focal length of the Eye of Sauron
  - zwegner 8y ago
    They're certainly meant to be entertaining. I really don't think they're meant purely as jokes, though. And which are the trick questions with trivial answers? I can't recall seeing any of those. Any question that is poorly specified can generally be augmented with reasonable assumptions or approximations, so that an AI could potentially give an answer. W|A is a natural language interface after all, and seeing all the "W|A can" posts on the account shows that it can certainly answer questions that don't have a precise mathematical definition. The intent behind each question is usually clear to me, and to have an AI that is useful to humans, we expect the AI to infer this intent and make reasonable assumptions. Even "focal length of the Eye of Sauron" could conceivably be given a rough answer from estimates of the eye's geometry (either from descriptions in the books, or a visual comparison with other objects of approximately-known size in the movie). The interesting part of the account IMO is thinking through how a hypothetical AI might answer each question. Take the latest question, "derivative of the shore length of Tasmania with respect to ocean depth". This is poorly specified in that "Tasmania" only exists for ocean depths that are low enough to not completely cover it and high enough to not have another land mass connect to it, and I'm sure there's tons of other assumptions that humans would implicitly make in answering a question like that. But the topography of the Earth is approximately known, and I can see how a rough answer could be calculated. Thinking through these assumptions, and comparing current technology with what we'd expect from an AGI, is quite illuminating, and is what makes that Twitter account so awesome IMO.
edjroot 8y ago
You can also get a few extra features on the mobile app, such as step-by-step solutions, if you pay a very small, one-time value (not sure how much).

ErotemeObelus 8y ago

Be prepared to have Stephen Wolfram pull all the stops in order to destroy your project. He didn't get rich by letting free competition flourish you know. EDIT: I downloaded the source just in case the author receives an offer he can't refuse.

techgipper 8y ago
The developer works at Wolfram, just FYI. https://medium.com/@poeschko https://medium.com/@poeschko
- ErotemeObelus 8y ago
  He should double-check his contract to see if there's an "anything you do either inside or outside of Wolfram Inc. is automatically our property" clause. Stephen Wolfram knows about this. He just hasn't taken action yet.
  - techgipper 8y ago
    So, he's just been sitting around for several years just waiting to "take action" ... doesn't really make sense. I'd also like to think that Jan Poeschko is smart enough to read a contract.
    - steve19 8y ago
      It's all well and good until someone forks it and tries to compete with mathamatica.
      - techgipper 8y ago
        Is that a dare? :)
      - jVinc 8y ago
        That's like saying Apple should be afraid someone straps a microphone to a raspberry pi and starts competing with the iPhone.

matt2019 8y ago

Tangential, but reminds me of Stephen Wolfram's story of how it got the name Mathematica. It was actually Steve Jobs's idea: "Over the months after our first meeting, I had all sorts of interactions with Steve about Mathematica. Actually, it wasn’t yet called Mathematica then … For a while he wouldn’t suggest anything. But then one day he said to me: 'You should call it Mathematica.' … he told me his theory for a name was to start from the generic term for something, then romanticize it." (Wolfram, Idea Makers)

jweir 8y ago
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica - Isaac Newton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Principia_Mathematica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Pri...
- matt2019 8y ago
  While I have this book in front of me: "all sorts of people were telling me that I needed to put quotes on the back cover of the book [A New Kind of Science] ... Steve said, 'Isaac Newton didn't have back-cover quotes; why do you want them?'"
  - tom_ 8y ago
    This reminds me of one of my favourite Ayn Rand quotes: after being asked to shorten John Galt's (interminable, 70-odd-page, tiny print) speech in Atlas Shrugged - "Would you cut the Bible?"!
szemet 8y ago
> then romanticize it You mean romanize? And not just on the surface (latin alphabet), but even using the actual word from latin (which is already romanized greek I guess) and of course all the related living languages... edit: I always felt strange naming a software exactly the same name (in many language) as the field it operates in. Like naming a music creation software Music, or a biology related software Biology, etc. It is like equates the software with the whole field, suggesting that there is no difference between the software and its disclipine. It is a marketing trick that have a bit of bragging side, but of course it is common pattern, e.g: https://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Am-Football-Zlatan-Ibrahimovic/dp/024129715X https://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Am-Football-Zlatan-Ibrahimovic/dp...

rolleTx 8y ago

If it is light-weight why don't they make web-app like Wolfram Alpha. I want to see an alternative to that.

thearn4 8y ago
SymPy Gamma (https://gamma.sympy.org/input/?i=integrate+x%5E2 https://gamma.sympy.org/input/?i=integrate+x%5E2) sort of fits as an alternative, though it's not very good at parsing general questions/expressions.
- codetrotter 8y ago
  Woah! That is very cool indeed. Time to start using SymPy Gamma instead of Wolfram|Alpha. Surprising that their GitHub repo has so few stars. Only 400 stars at the time of this writing. I mean, 400 stars is respectable of course, but seeing how cool this is I think they ought to have a lot more stars.
  - snazz 8y ago
    It even renders equations and graphs not as pixelated bitmaps! I should do this more often to avoid squinting while WolframAlpha-ing.
  - VvR-Ox 8y ago
    Just wanted to give a star but I saw the Google-junk and will wait until I know how you need to use Google stuff to use it because I've never read enough about GAE.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
corysama 8y ago
In big, bold text in the beginning of the description is the header for "Use Mathics online"
- 8y ago

wjsetzer 8y ago

I haven't had a lot of time to dig through the docs yet (also, I think your certificate is expired, btw), but this seems like a great alternative to Mathematica and the like. This is definitely a project I can get behind.

groovybits 8y ago
Can confirm, the certificate for angusgriffith.com is expired.
- sn6uv 8y ago
  Just renewed it (not that it'll survive the HN hug of death). It's been a few years since I've touched that website.

jhbadger 8y ago

This is a cute little project that can be deployed anywhere with pip install mathics -- I even have it on my android phone (under Termux)! It can't really compete with either Mathematica or Sage, but both are multi-gigabyte programs. Unfortunately the Jupyter kernel IMathics doesn't seem to work with the current release, although it does come with its own notebook support.

abc_lisper 8y ago

Cert expired.

sn6uv 8y ago
Just renewed it
- abc_lisper 8y ago
  Thanks!

abawany 8y ago

Somewhat unrelated but I would like to also mention Maxima (http://maxima.sourceforge.net/ http://maxima.sourceforge.net/), which used to be maintained by the late Dr. Schelter and is still updated. Here is a link to an old comparison between it and Mathematica: https://luckytoilet.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/beginners-comparison-of-computer-algebra-systems-mathematica-maxima-maple/ https://luckytoilet.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/beginners-compa... .

gnufx 8y ago
It could be related though Fateman's latest Mockmma, linked from https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/ https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/. (He got a legal threat from Wolfram over the original version long ago.) Other free general symbolic algebra systems are available, of course, like the venerable Reduce and Axiom.
- enriquto 8y ago
  I used to use mockmma a lot as an undergraduate, because it started much faster than mathematica and it could run exactly the same programs. I wonder why mathics does not keep exact compatibility of the language.
- pfortuny 8y ago
  Fateman was (is?) one of the main contributors!to maxima. Quite a helpful guy, also.
  - gnufx 8y ago
    Per Fateman's page, he worked on Macsyma (which was eventually freed as Macsyma) at least from the early '70s, probably late '60s. REDUCE is a similar age.

xrd 8y ago

Came here hoping for a discussion of the project itself but this is all information about Mathematica or the fact that the developer who started it now works there. Does anyone have an opinion on the software itself linked here?

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
I'm going through the exampleas and apart from some minor issues it looks like it's doing what it's supposed to do.

brian_herman__ 8y ago

Author of the program uses let’s encrypt and the ssl certificate is expired for the documentation... https://mathics.angusgriffith.com/doc/ https://mathics.angusgriffith.com/doc/

sn6uv 8y ago
Just renewed it

dang 8y ago

A discussion from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11459186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11459186

godelski 8y ago

This needs examples front and center. Seriously, why is this not more common? When I go to your landing page I want to see how awesome your thing is. A few examples is all it takes. Show me something like this In[6]:= Derivative[1][Sin] Out[6]= Cos[#1]& In[7]:= Derivative[2][Sin] Out[7]=-Sin[#1]& Don't make me go to documentation. Also don't compare it to Mathematica if it isn't as intuitive as Mathematica (seriously, it is wildly popular because simple things you don't have to look up. It works like you expect. There was a lot of planning to make it this way. People note the "Zen" of Mathematica). Here's an example of where Mathics is non-intuitive (besides if you remove the [1] from the above example) n[13]:= x = 5 Out[13]= 5 In[14]:= Derivative[1][x^2] Out[14]= 25' In[15]:= f[x] := x^2 In[16]:= Derivative[1][f] Out[16]= 2 #1& In[17]:= f'[x] Out[17]= 10 I know no system is perfect, but try to sell me on your idea before I go through your documentation and get frustrated that it doesn't work like the thing you compare it to.

sn6uv 8y ago
Thanks for the feedback, the web UI does have a gallery link [0] with a few interactive examples [1]. I agree though, a screenshot like this would be a good addition to the homepage. [0] https://pasteboard.co/IdIaJNo.png https://pasteboard.co/IdIaJNo.png [1] https://pasteboard.co/IdIc7dc.png https://pasteboard.co/IdIc7dc.png
- godelski 8y ago
  I don't think that first image helps but that second image is great. That gets me excited and makes it look intuitive. Seriously, put that on the landing page. Edit: Also that first example (from [1]) doesn't work for me In[1]:= 1 + 2 - x * 3 x / y Out[1]= 3 - 3 x ^ 2 / y Is this a difference in the cli? I also notice I can't get any graphics there. No connection to matplotlib? In[3]:= Plot[{Sin[x], Cos[x], Tan[x]}, {x, -3Pi, 3Pi}] Out[3]= -Graphics-
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  Thanks a lot for your great work! I installed mathics locally and the translate/sierpinski examples from the gallery don't seem to work. Do you have an idea why?

syockit 8y ago

Sometimes I confuse the meaning of light-weight to be something that "does simple thing quickly" instead of "easy to setup". The last time I played with Mathics (maybe 2 years ago) it was still much, much slower than Sympy.

axelclk 8y ago
The split between SymPy functions and Mathics wrappers around these functions, together with the pattern matching is probably responsible for the slower system. Therefore in the Symja project[0] we try to implement it all together in one (Java) library. Mathematica syntax can be tested in the MMA Console[1], but the documentation of the functions [2] is in the "normally used Symja syntax", which is much easier to use for the "common calculator user". [0] https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library [1] https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library/wiki/MMA-console-usage https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library/wiki/MMA-conso... [2] https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library/tree/master/symja_android_library/doc/functions https://github.com/axkr/symja_android_library/tree/master/sy...