Customer Reviews

The Beginner's Guide to MATHEMATICA ®, Version 4

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Two years ago I swallowed my pride and I purchased an earlier version of this book, "The Beginners Guide to Mathematica, Version 3". I say I swallowed my pride because I had been using Mathematica since 1989 and I did not think I needed to buy a beginner's guide. However, I did buy the book and it was great. While I was not a beginner, the book taught me a lot of neat things that perhaps I should have known, but didn't. When I saw Version 4 of the book was available I purchased it immediately. It is great. Much of the material is a repeat of the material in Version 3, but there are new chapters covering subjects such as importing and exporting data, image processing, and real-time graphics. The book is clearly written and the authors' humor is delightful. Hopefully, the electronic version of the book will soon be available. I recommend the book to everyone who uses Mathematica.

I am a beginning user of Mathematica. I was looking for a book to show me what to do after double clicking the Mathematica icon. This book is a hodge podge of neat things you can do with Mathematica (ie, image processing), but it was not very meaningful to me. I wanted my money back when I discovered what was inside.

Apparantly the real "book" is in electronic copy. The printed version is missing important sections and all the coding. There is no reference to this on the cover, the back or in the Preface. It's only in chapter 2 where they first elude to the electronic version, and chapter 4 where they tell you you have to buy it! Later on, you realize that the printed book isn't even complete (nevermind that 50 pages were included twice in my copy, giving it a false appearance of size).

The content is OK. Some good tips. I still didn't really know how to do what I needed, but I was a lot closer having read the book. Mostly I just felled cheated.

ps. The best chapters are the rants on educational theory and are really independent of Mathematica!

Do not buy this book in paper form. The meat of the material, what little there is, is offered only in the electronic version of the book. Thus, anytime in depth explanations are required they refer you to the e-form, or tell us to consult the Mathematica Book which accompanies the software package. They are cronies of Matematica, so they do nothing to point out the limitations of the software and only show us what they think is important, therefore, the representation of the book as being a "guide", beginners or otherwise, is a misrepresentation. DO NOT WASTE THE MONEY OR THE TIME TO READ THIS BOOK. There is infinetly more information in the Mathematica book and for technical applications there are a wealth of books written by independant authors whos do a much better job of explaning and illustrating the power of this awesome software package. Consider yourselves warned.

A fun overview of some (somewhat randomly selected) features of Mathematica presented in an entertaining style. Best for intermediate users of Mathematica who are looking for exposure to features of Mathematica that they might not yet have used.

A fun overview of some (somewhat randomly selected) features of Mathematica presented in an entertaining style. Best for intermediate users of Mathematica who are looking for exposure to features of Mathematica that they might not yet have used.

A fun overview of some (somewhat randomly selected) features of Mathematica presented in an entertaining style. Best for intermediate users of Mathematica who are looking for exposure to features of Mathematica that they might not yet have used.

A fun overview of some (somewhat randomly selected) features of Mathematica presented in an entertaining style. Best for intermediate users of Mathematica who are looking for exposure to features of Mathematica that they might not yet have used.