Wolfram Mathematica

belisarius

01:46

1 What's the difference between Mathematica and Matlab?

2 Can Matlab do what Mathematica does and vise versa?

3 What are the pros and cons of each of them?

4 Who are the appropriate users of each tool?

5 Will it benefit someone if he knows both of them?

6 What are the capabilities of Mathematica that makes it unique?

7 Can Mathematica play the role of an easy to use advanced scientific calculator for an engineer who is most of the time dealing with multi-variable calculus and partial differential (electromagnetism) eauations?

1) Several letters in the names. 2) Yes. Both Turing complete. Good luck writing heavy symbolic work in matlab though. 3). Many pros here at this site, a few users have done prison time. No idea re: Matlab expertise or criminality. 4) Ones that make up their own mind based on experience with the two vs taking polls.

5) Sure, they can answer comparison questions. 6) Stephen Wolfram. 'nuf said. And if you disagree, he'll send a pack of wild cellular automata your way to... "evolve" your opinion. 7) Yes. – ciao 1 hour ago

I can't star it. Damn.

Bravo @ciao:)

Sjoerd C. de Vries

08:07

@belisarius what's that about?

Ok. Found it.

xslittlegrass

16:51

Hi, what's the website for bug tracking that the community is maintaining ?

Silvia

17:05

@xslittlegrass Hi! :)

@xslittlegrass I don't think there's any. But you can check the WRI official site.

xslittlegrass

@Silvia hi

Silvia

@xslittlegrass Check this: mathematica.stackexchange.com/q/16179/17

I think one of the most complete list would be bugs on this site.

xslittlegrass

@Silvia OK maybe I made it wrong. I remember for a time recently @Mr.Wizard spend a large effort to format the post with proper bug title

@Silvia for example , this one

7

Q: ReadList can't read correctly

Bug introduced in 9.0 and fixed in 9.0.1 I'm trying to load some data into Mathematica from some files generated by fortran. But ReadList seems can't get the number correct. Here is a simplified version of the problem: ReadList[StringToStream@" 0.000000000000000000E+00 0.49095385072534998...

@Silvia I remember that formatting was for some program to automatically extract bug information on SE, but I could be wrong

Silvia

There are advanced ways to search the site, which might be helpful for the cases you mentioned.

xslittlegrass

@Silvia OK, I see, now I found the website I remembered dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2736911/bugreport.html

Silvia

17:14

@xslittlegrass But people should be aware of the inaccurate of the bug information from this site. As a ordinary users, we do make wrong judgement on what is bug and what isn't. e.g. mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/42419/…

@xslittlegrass So are you in China or else?

xslittlegrass

@Silvia In the USA. I came here 5 years ago for PhD. Now (two days ago) I'm a postdoc :)

Silvia

@xslittlegrass Hehe good luck with your postdoc ;) high energy physics?

xslittlegrass

@Silvia No, AMO physics

@Silvia we study ultrashort pulses theoretically

@Silvia you were studying nuclear physics right?

Silvia

@xslittlegrass Sounds interesting!

Oleksandr R.

@William what do you mean? The reality of it is that DNS was designed before Unicode was invented. Hence we have punycode to represent Unicode characters in terms of ASCII. 在线.com does not exist. When you enter that in your browser, it translates to punycode and you get sent to xn--3ds443g.com.

Silvia

17:20

@xslittlegrass No I'm done for college or whatever long time ago.

xslittlegrass

@Silvia OK, what do you do for a living now?

Silvia

I'm now just an ordinary coder in an ordinary IT company. Feels much happier than in a national institute.

xslittlegrass

@Silvia Many of my friends from physics are considering changing to IT

Oleksandr R.

@Szabolcs thanks for doing that. I need to update my packages (e.g. NelderMeadMinimize` is only current in the notebook) and then I will add a description and also submit the TransformedFit` package.

xslittlegrass

@Silvia It's too difficult to find a permanent job in academia

Oleksandr R.

17:24

@xslittlegrass ultrashort is what? HHG, attosecond?

xslittlegrass

@OleksandrR. Yes, exactly, use HHG to create femtosecond and attosecond pulses, and study their interaction with atom or molecular

or solid, which is my current project

Silvia

@xslittlegrass I think the main problem is the old rules of the academic "academic game" is no longer fit the everyone-research situation. What we need is a new way, maybe a more open, a New Kind of Cooperation way.

xslittlegrass

@OleksandrR. here is a video explaining what this field looks like, made by one of the leading group in our field

Vom Herzschlag zum Quantensprung -- Fast Forward Science 2013

►

Oleksandr R.

@xslittlegrass it's really crazy. I've never done anything like this. Femtosecond laser/solid interactions are actually easier to understand (IMO) than nanosecond because everything happens at solid density and the problem is not plagued by dynamics at many different scales. But I have no idea what the dynamics are like for attosecond pulses.

Silvia

@xslittlegrass Interesting video (,except I don't understand a single word :)

Oleksandr R.

17:32

@xslittlegrass the video is very nice. I like the animation of the molecule on picosecond and femtosecond timescales.

xslittlegrass

@Silvia Exactly, I couldn't agree with you more. There is some promising move on that direction though.

Silvia

@xslittlegrass I mean I don't have any knowledge on German O_O

xslittlegrass

@OleksandrR. I think at femtosecond/attosecond time scale, we are probing the true quantum properties of the solid. But there are two-levels of complexity here. The first is the periodic structure, and the second is the multi-electron effect.

@OleksandrR. I'm study one of the most simplest solid , solid argon at the moment

Oleksandr R.

@xslittlegrass that's a lot of electrons! Why not solid hydrogen?

xslittlegrass

@Silvia I don't understand German either, but the animation looks very nice

@OleksandrR. I think that's because H2 are formed

@OleksandrR. We solve only one electron problem, approximating the effect of other electrons using DFT

@OleksandrR. What do you do for a living?

Silvia

17:44

@xslittlegrass Yes indeed. In my past short academy life, the shortest time I encountered is pico-second. They use fast X-ray streak camera to capture the process of fusion.

Oleksandr R.

@xslittlegrass currently postdoc in plasma chemistry/physics. My Ph.D. was on laser ablation (so probably rather higher energy than you are talking about... enough to rip the material apart)

I do atomic and molecular spectroscopy, mostly.

Silvia

@OleksandrR. Hmm... Sounds like we might have some overlapping :)

Oleksandr R.

@Silvia a Ph.D. student in my group (Chinese) did his masters degree on fusion. The addition of certain elements to the fusion plasma to improve power extraction efficiency. But I forget the details (we have worked together on nanosecond laser ablation, not fusion-related plasma)

Silvia

@OleksandrR. My past job is analysing the Rayleigh–Taylor instability caused by laser ablation during a inertial confinement fusion.

But I don't really worked on the physics, just do data analysis.

Oleksandr R.

@Silvia this is very high energy nanosecond 355nm pulses? If so it is rather similar to what we are/have been working on, although not for fusion applications. We were mainly interested in pulsed laser depositon, at some point, but we moved onto spectroscopy and plasma diagnostics as I think it is more interesting

We are interested in the expansion from solid density into vacuum and how the electron density and temperature change during this process, and what the EEDF is like. It is highly non-thermal

Silvia

17:51

@OleksandrR. The driven lasers are indeed nanoseconds. But I forget the wavelength. My main concern is on hydrodynamic.

(But they are hard, so I eventually quite.. )

Oleksandr R.

@Silvia yes, it is very hard, I agree. We try to avoid all that by working at pressures low enough to avoid the Rayleigh-Taylor instability. But hydrodynamics of multiscale and nonequlibrium plasma is a difficult thing even without that.

Silvia

For ICF, they want a laser radiation distributing perfectly uniform on a micro-meter glass sphere. But AFAIK no one has been able to eliminate all the hydrodynamic instability, which will break the spherical symmetry and cause the failure of the ICF.

@OleksandrR. Actually I don't believe it (elimination of all hydrodynamic instabilities) can be achieved with current setup.

xslittlegrass

@OleksandrR. @Silvia I have to go back to work. Nice talking to you :)

Silvia

@xslittlegrass See you :)

Even with the power and number of beams in US' NIF, they just face more fragmented instabilities. I think the direction is wrong.

Oleksandr R.

@Silvia I don't know what to say about that. Probably you are right. It seems difficult to imagine how this can be done because (as I understand it?) there is no useful inertial confinement for shorter pulses.

Silvia

18:05

@OleksandrR. I think it's like trying to stay long at a unstable equilibrium point, without ways for dynamic adjustment! Like trying to place a pen upside down on the table by a precise drop :D

Anyway I think neither NIF nor the corresponding institues of China really care about it. ICF is never meant to be used for power generation. It's just a legal and cheaper way to do nuclear experiments.

For US, with all the data NIF collected, they can already simulate a nuclear bomb at a very high accuracy. A full digital nuclear experimental facility.

Oleksandr R.

@Silvia I never thought of it that way, but yes, it seems like a very much more palatable way to do the same experiments.

William

@OleksandrR. Yes but in Chrome you have to add the language for it display in unicode from. This means that all the chinese/russian/japanese/arabic sites are all displayed in unicode by default which is terrible IMO.

Silvia

@OleksandrR. It's always the real purpose of ICF research! :D ITER might be the real direction for civilian use.

@OleksandrR. Got to sleep now. Nice to speak with you!

Oleksandr R.

@Silvia and you! Goodnight.

William

@OleksandrR. I'm mean they are displayed in punycode by default.

Which is terrible IMO.

Oleksandr R.

18:21

@William well, as Silvia mentioned, it depends on the browser. Not so for Opera.

William

or firefox

Oleksandr R.

@William I am still sore that Opera fired all their software engineers and decided to switch to Chromium. Opera 12 was and is the only competently done browser out there, IMO.

2

William

@OleksandrR. I'm sorry that is almost funny. There were a couple features in Opera that I liked but mostly it seemed just unneeded. It is just another browser that needs to be kept up to date.

Oleksandr R.

@William apparently most people agreed because the new Opera is just a crappy Chrome clone. Absolutely worthless IMO

William

18:36

@OleksandrR. what is so bad about chrome? It crashes sometimes, but it seems to run faster and less memory hungry the firefox.

I like chrome better then firefox.

Oleksandr R.

@William it has no features and a UI seemingly deliberately designed to frustrate rather than help the user. I hate it.

William

@OleksandrR. What did opera have that chrome doesn't? It seems to even have the similar panel home page.

Oleksandr R.

@William a usable download manager and MDI would be the biggest ones

William

MDI is what?

MDI

MDI may refer to: In computer science: Media Delivery Index, a metric used in IPTV networks Medium Dependent Interface, a type of Ethernet port connection Microsoft Document Imaging Format, a proprietary file format Mission Data Interface, an interface developed by NUWC Keyport Multiple document interface, a type of software application interface In health: Mini dental implant, a type of dental implant Major Depression Inventory, a self-report mood inventory developed by the World Health Organization Metered-dose inhaler, a device that helps deliver a specific amount of medication to the lungs...

ahh I got it en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface

Oleksandr R.

@William yes. Sorry

William

18:42

Yeah I kinda like how Mathematica had such a feature, although I don't miss it that much.

Oleksandr R.

@William well Mathematica still mostly has it. At least WRI has not moved to the braindead but fashionable "tabs" interface. And, I don't know about you, but usually I don't have more than 4 or 5 notebooks open. Right now I have about 100 websites open. In the tabbed paradigm this would just be hell

William

Yeah I use Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab a lot

it is the only way to stand the tab interface IMO

This is unrelated by I hate how Google now only displays a couple pages of picture when you do a Image Google Search

Oleksandr R.

18:58

@William Ctrl-Tab switches between the tabs? Is this on Windows?

If so it should be Ctrl-F6, not Ctrl-Tab

William

No it definitely Ctrl+Tab

Yes Windows

Oleksandr R.

I mean, the correct keystroke for switching between subwindows is Ctrl-F6. If Chrome chose something different it is just a sign that they ignore UI conventions

William

Well the copied Firefox

and I believe Opera(don't hold me to this)

Oleksandr R.

In Opera it opens a switching interface but does not immediately switch. The easier way to get to the same interface is hold right mouse and use the scroll wheel

I will tell you another thing that annoys me about Chrome. The notification icon that never contains any notifications but just a rude comment: "nothing to see here, move along". Who in their right mind designs a UI element whose only purpose is to tell the user to go away and mind their own business? It also contains a comma splice. Whenever I saw it, I felt like punching the illiterate idiot who decided on this. Eventually I found it was possible to disable it.

William

Now both bing.com and Google.com image search are bordeline useless to me. The value of Image Search was having multiple images

I've never seen that page it must be disabled

Oleksandr R.

19:05

The version of Chrome that completely messed up text antialiasing was another good one.

William

Yeah that was funny, I loved the fix was to add like an alpha channel or something.

Oleksandr R.

I just disabled that as well

William

it's better then IE so that it why i continue to use it

really google just had to better then IE and people would likely use it.

Oleksandr R.

The impression I get from Chrome is the same as with all Google products: "we know what's best, so you should be grateful we give you our half-baked crap at all. And no we are not going to listen to any user feedback."

Actually I find IE11 perfectly fine to use, if lacking in features. However on my phone it crashes at the slightest thing so I don't quite know what causes that

William

yeah that's a problem

It's provide you don't touch the forbidden button

Oleksandr R.

19:11

Many Windows phone applications seem unstable. Facebook crashes and restarts itself without warning, Facebook messenger crashes, IE crashes, Skype crashes...

not just occasionally either. Practically every single time they are used

William

that is almost as bad as this android article

news360.com/article/311468379

Oleksandr R.

@William haha really?! Additional information: redtube.com?!?!?

William

I don't think you should be posting a porn site

I went there and my parents(yes I live with my parents) are in the room

Oleksandr R.

@William you're the one who linked to an article that has the URL in a screenshot at the top of the window

William

@OleksandrR. This is embarassing the ads are based on your search history.

I have acollege ad because I'm still in college

Oleksandr R.

19:17

@William what?

William

Also technically I have a Cybersecurity ad lockheedmartin.com/…

I'll send you a pic if you want

Oleksandr R.

you need to look more closely

William

oh sorry my bad that text is to small

that is even funnier

is that debian/fedora or something else entirely

Oleksandr R.

@William Windows 2003 (don't ask)

William

hahha I'm to young to probably really remember 2003

and I thought you were being 1337 with Linux and all

now you have to tell me

Oleksandr R.

19:26

Windows 2000 was the peak of Windows, in my opinion, and it's been going downhill ever since. Although I don't have much of a problem with Windows 8 or 10, because nothing could be worse than Windows 7.

William

W8 without the start button was worse

Now the important question do you have Mathematica installed in 2013?

Oleksandr R.

I didn't really think so. The Windows 7 UI is painful to use. It seems like they decided to copy every fashionable bad idea from back then. I'm glad they got rid of the transparent UI elements more recently. The diagonal lines drawn to make the windows look like glass are the worst.

@William Mathematica 10 can't be installed but I have version 9 here. I have version 10 in the office where I am forced to use the hated Windows 7

William

that's incredible that M9 can be installed in 2013 is that even technically documented anywhere?

Oleksandr R.

@William there is no reason why it shouldn't be able to be. Windows 2003 is of the same age as XP 64-bit (actually it is exactly the same apart from UI)

William

it makes sense why they deprecated xp both Mathematica and Windows

i liked xp the best, although the new stuff seems slower(although I haven't tried W10)

Oleksandr R.

19:38

I use 2003 because I never liked XP. But anyway WRI uses Visual Studio to compile Mathematica and things compiled with more recent versions of that do not always run without trouble on older versions of Windows

Additionally version 10 has color management capabilities (that do not really seem to work properly, but it has them anyway) and those rely on newer versions of Windows (Vista and later)

William

20:21

anything is better then vista

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