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The Mathematica Book, Fourth Edition
by Stephen Wolfram
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (1999-03-15)
ISBN: 0521643147
EAN: 9780521643146
Dewy Decimal #: 510.2855369
Hardcover: 1496 pages
Edition: 4
SKU: 0807286
Condition: Like New As issued n
Comments: Hardback. Like new condition with no highlights, underlines or notes and no marks. Issued with illustrated cover and no DJ. Cover is like new. Tight binding and crisp clean text. Very nice book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
With over a million users around the world, the Mathematica software system created by Stephen Wolfram has defined the direction of technical computing for the past decade. The enhanced text and hypertext processing and state-of-the-art numerical computation features ensure that Mathematica 4 takes scientific computing into the next century. New to this version: visual tour of key features, practical tutorial introduction, full descriptions of 1100 built-in functions, a thousand illustrative examples, easy-to-follow descriptive tables, essays highlighting key concepts, examples of data import and export, award-winning gallery of Mathematica graphics, gallery of mathematical typesetting, dictionary of 700 special characters, a complete guide to the MathLink API, notes on internal implementation, and an index with over 10,000 entries copublished with Wolfram Media.
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Customer Reviews
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Mathematica book by Stephen Wolfram
Rating  (2)
Date: 2007-06-04
First I will say that I am not a Math nut and I have had to spend 3 months learning Vector math and Mathematica 5.2 to do some modeling. While I can get many things to work and plot. The syntax problems associated with the software are numerous and very difficult to resolve. Using version 4 of this book I have found that the issues I need to resolve are not easy to find in this book. Of course the writers of the software assume a certain familiarity with the type of maths employed and certain programming skills, but they have made it much more difficult for the casual user to use the software. This book is not much help in that regard. Instead I have purchased Mathematica Navigator by Heikki Ruskeepaa and am starting to go through that book in the hope that it will help me. The CD with that easily installs into Math 5.2, but not version 6. The latest software has a lot of new functions and a useful debugging window which helps update code, but the old style help index has gone. Thus, the software is not fully backwards compatible. Where this leaves us with these books for earlier versions of Mathematica I am not sure. Hopefully there is enough of 5.2 remaining in Mathematica 6 to make my purchase worthwhile. If not I am back to 5.2 and to building my own set of nested functions to do rotations and translations in 3D.
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An essential guide for Mathematica users
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-12-07
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Mathematica can be a very daunting program for first time users. I remember when I first started using it back in 1997, and I was amazed with its power and conciseness. This is the best book on the subject and probably the only one you'll need by the author of the program himself. The book starts out with very simple concepts and builds on them to include just about anything you'd ever want to do with Mathematica, including the solution of indefinite integrals. The explanations are to the point, the examples are of sufficient complexity to demonstrate the features but not too complex, and the use of figures in the book is excellent. If you don't need the program's fancy graphics or sound capabilities, you won't have to suffer through inexplicable examples that use them. The author isolates the explanation of that portion of the program in its own chapters.
There is a fifth edition of this book, but it is out of print, and sellers are asking ridiculously high prices for copies. Since an electronic version of this book comes with every copy of Mathematica you should do fine with this earlier in-print version.
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Essential to the efficient use of Mathematica
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-07-09
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Iin terms of speed and functionality, the program Mathematica is the most amazing program I have ever used. It is an indispensable tool for research in many areas of the sciences and mathematics. From the evaluation of mathematical formulas to the graphing of three-dimensional data over time, it can handle almost anything that you need to process or analyze. Surprisingly user-friendly for such a capable program, it takes very little time for even a novice to put it to productive use. However, with all that capability there is a problem with the sheer number and detail of the options, which is why the documentation is so critical. While there is extensive online documentation with Mathematica that is easy to use, there is still a need for the documentation in physical form.
This book, in its fourth edition, is complete, and easy to use, with the exception of requiring a bit of physical effort to lift. That's correct - the book contains 1,470 pages. In my extensive use of Mathematica, I use the book and online help in about equal amounts. Generally, I use the online help when I don't remember a precise syntax and I'll use the book when I'm concerned more with the details of the behavior or the nuances of an operation or a capability.
I consider this reference book essential to the efficient use of Mathematica and well its procurement, if the software package you have does not contain a copy. This fourth edition contains excellent tutorials, a myriad of examples, and a wonderful gallery of graphic images.
Published in Mathematics and Computer Education, reprinted with permission.
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Where is it?
Rating  (1)
Date: 2006-03-19
1 out of 23 customers found this reveiw helpful
I ordered this book and eventually amazon cancelled the order because it was not available. They then ask me to review it? Where is it?
Rev brucee
Update: now it's available for free download.
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Excellent Manual
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-03-10
The mathematica book is the best manual ever written
for some piece of software.
I would even say, the major advantage of mathematica
compared to other computer algebra systems is that
it comes with decent documentation.
I would love to have all software manuals to meet the
standards set by the mathematica book.
The most important feature of this book is that
it is organized in learning stages
which helped me a lot in speeding up my personal
learning process.
This is the outline
Chapter 0 = first two hour of reading:
overview over the possibilities
Chapter 1 = first two days of reading:
standard solutions for standard problems
Chapter 2 = first two month of reading:
general principles and ideas
Chapter 3 = as time goes by:
technicalities
After six months you can be done with the book,
and will have to use the mathematica usenet for
special questions you may encounter in your daily work.
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