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Top Open Source Mathematical Programs
math-blog.com — A selection of amazing math oriented open source software that won't cost you a dime. This article provides pointers to the free replacements for Mathematica, Maple, Matlab and S-Plus.
TonyChange- 1516 diggs
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- mcm297, on 10/11/2007, -24/+2Scilab looks very nice, but Matlab is still the thing to have. Even though it'll set you back $1000 (for a student version), when it comes to image processing, it's Matlab FTW.
- respekt, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10I partially agree with you. Matlab is the best in its field. However I think you can accomplish pretty much anything with Scilab coupled with the other free softwares available. If you can spend a thousand or more bucks for Matlab, sure it is nice, but if you can't you have a few valid alternatives IMHO.
- killiansman, on 10/11/2007, -0/+25Are you sure you got the student version? Cuz I paid $99 for my student version of Matlab.
Anyway... I had never heard of R and it looks pretty sweet, I'm gonna have to give it a try. - LordVoldemort, on 10/11/2007, -10/+7"when it comes to image processing, it's Matlab FTW."
You're ***** me, right?
Matlab graphics are a pain in the ass.
Matlab is one of the most poorly designed "programs" on earth. ever.
If you must, look into something like pylab (matplotlib). - mcm297, on 10/11/2007, -6/+12If you go nuts with all of the extra features, you can spend well-over $1000 in purchasing a student copy of Matlab (as stated above, the base copy is $99.)
- crgnetworks, on 10/11/2007, -10/+50I heard the torrent versions free.
- Salgat, on 10/11/2007, -9/+5I love Maple. You have to activate it online, so I doubt that torrents would work for it(unless you can find a crack for it).
- sbgskl, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Definitely, MATLAB is the standard. You will find MATLAB at every lab or engineering organization, used in everything from aircraft controls modeling to image processing. It's a wonderful, robust tool.
- bobbyi, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9I think the best open source alternative to Matlab is the numeric computing libraries for python, especially numpy. I needed to do some work with wavelets recently and I was just about to try to figure out the Matlab Wavelets Toolbox when I discovered the python wavelets module...
- rorschachex, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1MATLAB R2007a (the new student version) is still $99 but comes with the DSP toolbox for image/audio/etc processing... along with a lot of the other toolboxes, I don't see how one could spend $1000 on the student version...
- kaelyiesta, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Octave is a nice substitute for matlab. It's not on par, but its free. R rocks. It isn't meant to handle things the way matlab does, but what it is meant for, it does well.
- nadadingsda, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6I did most of my work in Matlab until about a year ago when I switched to Python. Python combined with NumPy, Matplotlib and some other extension modules is really powerful and can easily replace Matlab for most tasks. Compared to Matlab, Python is a much better designed programming language and coding becomes fun again. If you need a GUI you can use PyQt. For some tasks Python may be a bit slow, but it is quite easy to write an extension module in C or C++, sometimes I even write a single Qt widget in C++ and combine it with PyQt.. it just rocks!
- gravis86, on 10/11/2007, -4/+3Where's the Mac love? You trying to say mac users can't do math? (On second thought, don't answer the last one)
- kutza, on 10/11/2007, -4/+4Dear God. I may be nerdy into computers, but arguing over open source math software?
That's where I draw the line. I like getting pussy.
- StrawberryMarie, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3For me it's Maxima vs Axiom. Can't decide which one should I install and learn. Do you guys have any opinions regarding this?
- jjcarett, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Axiom is much more actively developed (it was "reborn" a few years ago), while maxima has been around longer, but with less omph behind it.
For ease-of-use, assuming you're Lisp kind of person, maxima wins. For correctness, Axiom's got the edge.
[Disclaimer: I do research in computer algebra; I used to work at one of the commercial vendors]
- jjcarett, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Axiom is much more actively developed (it was "reborn" a few years ago), while maxima has been around longer, but with less omph behind it.
- curios, on 10/11/2007, -6/+3I've got a 60 day free trial of Mathcad Professional 7 [1998]( good, intuitive and easy to learn) which i refresh on my old spare computer by reinstalling Win98. Does anyone know of a better way of doing this?
- respekt, on 10/11/2007, -1/+13What you are doing is probably a violation of the license. It's not too far away from cracking the latest version out right. Have you considered some open source alternatives. GNU TeXmacs works very well for publishing documents and as a frontend for Maxima.
- lengau, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6I've never done this before (with any software), but you could get a virtual machine, install Win98+the software, backup the VM image, and every time the trial runs out, just refresh from the old image.
- NGNR, on 10/11/2007, -0/+16I think that GNU Octave should have made the list.
"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."
http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/- TonyChange, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13"I think that GNU Octave should have made the list."
The article lists GNU Octave. It is listed as an alternative to Scilab. - NGNR, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9*****...long day.
- sbgskl, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Sadly Octave is _vastly_ slower than MATLAB. Scripts that run instantaneously on MATLAB take tens of minutes on Octave (compiled with GCC4). The compatibility is decent though, except for the very different RK45 ODE solvers.
- TonyChange, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13"I think that GNU Octave should have made the list."
- Pic0, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4ok graph plotting software is WinPlot
I have matlab, takes a long time to load, but it is good - assoffire, on 10/11/2007, -0/+21if (Sage + Scilab + R == tools)
die('Mathematica');
end - IAmRoot, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10I recommend fung-calc as a graphing program. http://fung-calc.sourceforge.net/
- bchang, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Nice, I just lost my calculator and have 5 pages of trig to do. Great replacement!!
- CarzorStelatis, on 10/11/2007, -6/+3Many of these are like MS Offfice v OpenOffice. If you ignore the whole file formats argument (am I the only one here who doesn't care?), MS Office /is/ better than OpenOffice. If you can't afford MS Office (ie you don't qualify for the 'student select' license, and no I don't mean Home & Student), or you have a political objection to proprietary software, then OpenOffice will be fine.
- Phlosten, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I have access to the latest MSOffice and I don't use it because I don't want my documents stored in it's ridiculous proprietary formats. I value my documents and I value the freedom to be able to access them for years to come. I also like being able to run OO on whichever platform I want. The filesizes are much smaller too.
- Farrel, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2Anybody know of an open source method to replace Microsoft Word's Equation editor? I am using Google Docs quite a bit and every now and again want to insert a formula.
- rhabd0mancer, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6I haven't tried it, but MathCast is open source.
http://mathcast.sourceforge.net/home.html - senatorpjt, on 10/11/2007, -1/+21LaTeX.
- mtekk, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12You could use OpenOffice as it has a great built in equation editor (OpenOffice Math).
- rhabd0mancer, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6I haven't tried it, but MathCast is open source.
- loconet, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3I use Maple regularly while at school and have yet to see something that comes even close from the open source side of things.
- phenolholic, on 10/11/2007, -7/+2yes but will they blend?
- vagarach, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4At university of waterloo, given the unis special relationship with Waterloo Maple, the student version of maple is just $30, and I can say, its the best $30 I've ever spent! It made the first two years of my maths degree so much easier. R is also an awesome program for doing stats.
- don0, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10R is amazin our university uses it instead of s+. open source all the way!!!!
- jambarama, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1R can do everything any other stats program can do, and has been for some time. We had to use it in my econometrics class way back in 2003, and it was fine, but compared to s+ or spss, it is a royal PITA to use. Not even C is as picky on syntax as R. It does have pretty great help though, so no one much minded using it. Especially when we found out the other econometrics class was using Shazam *shudder*.
- bootle, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Python offers a lot in the way of scientific computation with modules such as scipy/numpy which are built around very speed compiled libraries. Plus, it's VERY easy to use python to script large existing code bases in languages like C, which are far less fun to write. I hate using shell scripts now!
I know places like Los Alamos are pushing python and other free/open software hard because they, apparently, have to pay full price for every copy of matlab, no site license or discounts. Despite all their bank (probably less every day, thanks to Iraq), that's a LOT of money. - sherifffruitfly, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Apparently the blogger has never heard of sage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_for_Algebra_and_Geometry_Experimentation- CAPSLOCKISCOOL, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5then why did he link to it in valuable mentions under number 1?
- assoffire, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Apparently the commenter has never read the article.
- Lane, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1i was hoping for more of type in your calc equation and pops out the answer a kind of a program. sigh... another D is on its way.
- respekt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Maxima does just that.
- zeroduck, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1They will. If you know how to use the tools.
But to use the tools, you generally need to know what you're doing to begin with.
- KahNeth, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1quote from maxima section of article
Valuable mentions are:
* Axiom
* Sage
* Yacas
Sage, GAP and KANT/KASH are what I tend to use the most - didgital, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Does anyone know of a spreadsheet program that's not limited to 256 col x 65000 rows? I process huge spreadsheets and I always have to chop them up. Very annoying....
- dxbmatt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Excel 2007 increases the limits to 16384 columns and 1048576 rows
- SEMW, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2If you're doing a lot of data processing with large amounts of data, have you considered whether a spreadsheet is the right tool for the job? You should consider whether a database or dedicated data processing package would be more efficient.
- enervation, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3For a good,fast,GPL calculator, try "Qalculate!".
http://qalculate.sourceforge.net/index.html - tyrione, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0If you're doing Dynamic Systems Analysis for Stress/Strain, Fracture, etc., then MatLab for some your Numerical Analysis and then off to Ansys, Pro/E or other for modeling.
R is a statistical analysis system designed for Social Sciences.
The others have a long way to go to do what Matlab can do.
However, the biggest barrier to all of these applications is your own professional Education. If you're not an M.E./E.E/Chem.E/etc., then you won't get the most out of MatLab. - maninalift, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I don't know whether it has improved but when I last used Scilab it was slow. Unusably so.
- assoffire, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0The guy wrote a quick tutorial to Maxima after this post: http://digg.com/software/A_10_minute_tutorial_for_solving_Math_problems_with_Maxima
- nkthen, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1I didn't know that there are so many Open Source software for maths...
http://www.osdw.org - johnlande360, on 03/17/2008, -0/+0I recommend fung-calc as a graphing program. http://fung-calc.sourceforge.net
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