Mathics: A free, open-source alternative to Mathematica | Hacker News Reader

Mathics: A free, open-source alternative to Mathematica

mathics.org

49 pointsfanf26 comments

Related. Others?

Mathics 7.0 – Open-source alternative to Mathematica - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42349375 - Dec 2024 (58 comments)

Mathics: A free, open-source alternative to Mathematica - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33477793 - Nov 2022 (203 comments)

Mathics – A free, light-weight alternative to Mathematica - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19851934 - May 2019 (83 comments)

Mathics: A free, light-weight alternative to Mathematica - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11459186 - April 2016 (73 comments)

Mathics - A free, light-weight alternative to Mathematica - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5196551 - Feb 2013 (86 comments)

Mathics - A free, light-weight alternative to Mathematica with support for Sage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4066826 - June 2012 (57 comments)

Is it reasonable to guess that this is a wrapper around SymPy and related Python libraries? If so, it might be a nice thing, even if it doesn't replace the entire corpus of Mathematica, to the satisfaction of mathematicians. Specialized, domain specific software, still tends to be a tempting but elusive target for the open source movement.

I'm an industrial physicist. I used Reduce in grad school, and Mathematica in the 90s. Since then I've also used MuPad, WxMaxima, and SymPy. Today, in terms of functionality, SymPy is sufficient for my needs. It lets me "code" derivations that I used to do by hand, directly in the same programs where I use the derived formulas. This makes the whole shebang more self-documenting and reproducible, even if the math I'm doing isn't super sophisticated.

But compared to Mathematica (perhaps biased by past experience), I still find SymPy to be awkward for use as a math notebook. For this reason, I'm willing to explore a tool like this.

Though I don't know the cost of Mathematica to schools, a free alternative might have an educational use. A friend of mine was a high school math teacher, and used Mathematica in the classroom. But the cost of maintaining a license was an ongoing issue.

It is specific to your lab that symbolic anything works. My ion trapping lab would just go "yeah, great. Keep it there for a couple years". Unfun, serious experiments have their own joy, but I'm not expecting great things in the next decade. I just want to be able to breathe on my own.

Interestingly this is better in terms of precision but as an interface for math is still behind good old paper and pencil.

The interface is still 30+ years old...

> mathicsscript features: terminal interaction using either prompt_toolkit or GNU Readline

> syntax highlighting using pygments

> This is a browser-based webserver with MathML-formatted output and Three.js graphics.

> extensive online documentation and interactive documentation via Ajax

> integrated graphics and MathML mathematics output via MathJax and Three.js

Is this an art piece for software engineers or a tool for mathematicians to use?

That said, glad this exists. Mathematica syntax is excellent and the reason for its continued use. I see from the docs that some of the basic libraries, the other power of Mathematica, are implemented. But a lot more are needed for a usable system.

I wouldn't be that critical. As a long-time but now somewhat infrequent Mathematica user (from the times it ran on the NeXT) I'm happy to see alternatives, even if they didn't benefit from Wolfram's almost maniacal drive for feature coverage.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com