
Mathics: A free, light-weight alternative to Mathematica - Jerry2
https://mathics.github.io/
======
notthemessiah
If you're looking for a mature alternative, Maxima CAS
([http://maxima.sourceforge.net/](http://maxima.sourceforge.net/)) is worth
looking into. It doesn't aim for syntax compatibility with Mathematica as this
does, but it is quite usable and fast.

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anc84
Also [http://www.sympy.org/](http://www.sympy.org/)

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IndianAstronaut
Sympy is so simple and intuitive to use.

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zakjan
Sage / Sagecloud is quite popular in academics in the Czech Republic.

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kzrdude
Yes bug Sage is weird. It's a sewed together giant of multiple parts, and the
seams are quite apparent. It's also hard to install and get started with.

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partycoder
This is not true anymore. In Windows it might be, but on Mac and Linux it's
very straightforward.

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thomasahle
Examples are here:
[https://mathics.angusgriffith.com/doc/manual/examples/curve-...](https://mathics.angusgriffith.com/doc/manual/examples/curve-
sketching/)

Having spent time learning the syntax of Mathematica, this seems like a nice
interface to SymPy.

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sandGorgon
Genuine question - what is the use of all these versus something like R or
Pandas that is actually usable in production as well.

What is missing in R/Pandas that makes people choose other pieces of software
that does something very similar? Commercial versions of software probably has
an edge in support/performance/libraries...Or (as with Simulink ) provides a
very specific piece of functionality or integration.

But what is the general use case? Even Mathworks has acknowledged the need to
integrate with the huge R community out there -
[http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/05/22/why-would-a-
mathematica-u...](http://blog.wolfram.com/2013/05/22/why-would-a-mathematica-
user-care-about-r/)

~~~
dekhn
The value of Mathematica is pretty straightforward. The language it provides
is nothing special, but the scientific and mathematic routines, along with the
symbolic support, put it in a class by itself- no open source package I've
seen does root finding and other similar processes as effectively.

The symbolic stuff is pretty cool too. Years ago I wrote "pyml" which made all
the Mathematica features available in Python via a C language bridge. Whereas
in scipy/numpy you can find the eigenvectors of a numeric array (a matrix of
floats), in Mathematica, you can find the eigenvectors of a symbolic array (a
matrix containing terms like x-1, y-5, etc).

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CullingTheHerd
And yet Mathematica is not nearly as effective as math when done by pencil,
paper, and a trained mathematician.

The value of maths is 1) it's "open-source", 2) it's free to use, 3) if you
want to switch from one module to another (say, number theory to category
theory) you are able to do so using the same tools (pencil, paper, and a
trained mathematician), and so long as the two "modules" are inter-operable it
flows so beautifully. If they are not, then you get to try to figure out ways
to make them so.

That, imho, is why I think all these open source packages keep popping up.
Math itself is the ultimate "open source". And in doing math one is not
limited to command line interface, left-to-right, line-by-line tools. Compare
the experience of writing out a derivative in LaTeX vs on paper. LaTeX is an
exercise in causing pain and frustration to oneself. On paper, it feels as
though you're writing music.

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nikofeyn
you are describing a very limited view of what it means to do mathematics. and
no, all of mathematics is not open source. much of it is locked behind
institutional barriers.

also, i don't understand this fervent attitude that something must be free and
open source to be useful. a lot of open source software is complete trash.
there is a reason why people pay to use tools like matlab, labview, and
mathematica. it is because their value exceeds their cost.

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dekhn
i believe the phrase is "software is only free if your time is worthless".
There are plenty of counterexamples to this (where there is free software that
greatly increases the productivity of the user, without a great deal of time
spent moving up the learning curve).

In the case of Mathematica there is a ton that is "locked away behind
institution barriers". Mathematica contains millions of lines of code
dedicated to implementing clever algorithms for making their root finder and
other things work really, really well. but those are all internal source code
lines within the company.

I've seen this play out across multiple industries. A good example is SAS and
R. There are certain parts of FDA new drug applications that require,
specifically, the SAS implementation of a statistical routine, and you can't
use R because it doesn't implement the routine in a bit-identical manner.
However, a spokesperson from SAS once said, "You'd never fly in an airplane
designed by open source software" to which Boeing responded "we use open
source software to design our airplanes"

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i336_
I'm replying a little late and I'm not sure if you'll see it, but do you have
a source for that quote? That's amazing.

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gaur
Is sympy ever going to be able to do symbolic Padé approximation? That's the
only thing keeping me from dumping Mathematica.

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appleflaxen
Another option is octave.

[https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/](https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/)

I've only used it a bit, but when I did it was adequate. Not sure how this
compares to Mathics overall in terms of functionality, footprint though.

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nerdponx
Are you thinking of Matlab?

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appleflaxen
Gah. Yes. Regrets.

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latkin
The idea of Mathics is great - open-source, in-the-browser Mathematica clone -
unfortunately the implementation is still sorely lacking. Last time I tried it
(admittedly fairly long ago), even simple stuff just didn't work:
[https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/issues/260](https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/issues/260)

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kzrdude
Thanks for posting this, just for our awareness.

The interface would be a lot easier to use if it had an integrated help system
(help function?) and tab completion.

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sn6uv
The web interface does have inbuilt docs. Code introspection and tab
completion are coming as part of the new interface (in progress) see
[https://github.com/mathics/IMathics](https://github.com/mathics/IMathics)

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tamana
Mathics was abandoned a few years ago when the author got a job working on ...
Take a guess as to what

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delhanty
GitHub shows significant activity in 2015, 2016:

[https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/mathics/Mathics/graphs/contributors)

It looks like sn6uv (Angus Griffith "a Mathematician and Programmer from
Sydney Australia") has picked up the baton ...

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sn6uv
That's right. Mathics is still maintained. There are currently two of us
working on it. The last release was v0.9 in March this year.

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mvardin
Or you could just use the real thing for free at
[https://www.open.wolframcloud.com/](https://www.open.wolframcloud.com/)

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UncleSlacky
Or even run it for free on a Raspberry Pi (or under a Pi emulation on a PC,
albeit slowly).

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tamana
Huh. Can you share links to documentation ofnthis strategy?

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UncleSlacky
Sorry for the delay - I don't usually check for replies here: [http://linux-
mitterteich.de/fileadmin/datafile/papers/2013/q...](http://linux-
mitterteich.de/fileadmin/datafile/papers/2013/qemu_raspiemu_lug_18_sep_2013.pdf)

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oneloop
Mathematica is a very complex piece of software. As an ex-physicist there's no
way I would trust this completely unknown open source alternative.

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gaur
You shouldn't trust Mathematica either. It has had bugs in the past [0].

Also it didn't have a proper "undo" feature until a year or so ago, which is
pretty embarrassing.

[0]
[http://www.ams.org/notices/201410/rnoti-p1249.pdf](http://www.ams.org/notices/201410/rnoti-p1249.pdf)

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oneloop
My point was "this piece of software surely has more bugs than Mathematica".
What's your point? That because they both have a non-zero number of bugs we
should be equally suspicious of both?

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gaur
> My point was "this piece of software surely has more bugs than Mathematica".

It sounded like your point was "I trust Mathematica, but not this open-source
CAS". Otherwise you would have just said "I don't trust CASs".

