Math Software

[jackboot]

Question:

I am thinking of up-grading to TK Solver 5.0. However, I have always been interested in other packages- MathCAD for instance.

I have to do design reports and TK has always done the job but the cut and paste headaches of putting the information into Word have always taken the fun out of the job.

Has anyone ever used TK and other packages? Which would do you find most helpful? TK has the "back calculation" function that they claim no else has - can anyone verify?

Any information would be appreciated?

jackboot

 

[GregLocock]

The great thing about Mathcad is that you no longer need to go back into Word, typical engineering calculations can be fully annotated and rendered into a presentable form inside Mathcad.

I wouldn't want to write a real report in Mathcad, but I bet someone has.

I never got on with TK so I can't comment on it, but have heard that it has features that the other packages lack.

Others you might look at

Mathematica: more of a learning cliff than a learning curve. I don't know if it can be used to create reports, but the chances of finding anyone else who can read the equations is fairly slim, outside of mathematicians. (and inside a mathematician it's too dark to read equations).

Matlab: fast powerful ugly

Scilab, octave, R: 3 freeware alternatives to Matlab, with slightly different emphases. I have seen some neat (as in tidy) reports in Scilab, but I think it takes a fair amount of effort to get there.

OK, I admit it, I'm a Mathcad fanboy.



Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[IRstuff]

TKSolver's back calculation approach is probably the simplest, but a backsolver is essentially similar to the Solve functionality of Excel or the Given-Find functionality in Mathcad.

In Mathcad, the basic approach is:
> Define guess values and constants
> Define constraints (This is the Given part)
> Define variables allowed to change (This is the Find part, which also outputs the values of the variables that allow all the constraints to be met.)

Excel's is similar in nature

TTFN

 

[EnglishMuffin]

You might want to check out this thread :thread724-61185

 

[Denial]

To Greg Locock's list, I would add "DERIVE", particularly if you are interested in stand-alone symbolic processing in algebra and calculus.

I have been using DERIVE for over a decade, starting with its DOS versions, and it very rapidly became an indispensible tool in my mathematical armoury. The program was developed by Soft Warehouse (sic) of Honolulu, but has relatively recently been taken over by Texas Instruments. Unfortunately I am still using version 4, the last produced by Soft Warehouse, because Texas Instruments (or, at least, their Australian agents) refused to recognise version 4 as the basis for a reduced price upgrade to version 5 (TI's first version).

See

http://education.ti.com/us/product/software/derive/features/features.html

for some information on the latest version of DERIVE.