Customer Reviews

Mathematica Navigator, Second Edition: Mathematics, Statistics, and Graphics

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This comprehensive volume covers many topics. Indeed, I would probably call it the most COMPREHENSIVE yet GENERAL text on the inner workings of the Mathematica program. For instance, Dr. Ruskeepaa treats the topic of 4 dimensional graphics, and I have not found that topis highlighted in any text. Furthermore, when it comes to specific mathematical models, such as difference equations, more information is located in this volume that anywhere else [except perhaps the on-line MathSource Mathematica Library]. Dr. Ruskeepaa's book not only demonstrates the basics in each category, but goes beyond what other resources have taught me. I highly recommend this book! Additionally, the CD-ROM which accompanies the book is quite handy. Lastly, I have had occaision to ask Dr. Ruskeepaa specific questions, and he has been MORE THAN HELPFUL and PUNCTUAL in providing me with solutions from his vast Mathematica knowledge. FIVE STARS -- better than any Mathematica book [I've seen most Mathematica books about graphics, physics and science; and programming].

The positive reviews were right on the money, this book is the best! It allowed me to start using Mathematica with ease, compared to the many hours of past frustration while working on optimizations. I fought endlessly, struggling to decipher the software's baroque navigation, cryptic errors, hostility to the user which borders on abuse - but now Mathematica and I are becoming great friends thanks to Heikki Ruskeepaa's wonderful tome. THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS BOOK!!!

Of particular benefit is the guidance s/he provides for best practices in formatting cells to avoid common, productivity-killing pitfalls.

I have many books on Mathematica and use Mathematica a lot to do both symbolic and numerical calcualtions. This book is the best I have seen. I would recommend it to anyone using Mathematica for serious symbolic or computational work. If you are looking for a book about applied mathematics and numerical methods with Mathematica this is the one. The treatment of the graphical capabilities of Mathematica is complete and very useful. The only minor criticism I would have for this book is that it has no unsolved exercises and problems. However the examples presented are excellent. I have the highest regard for the author of this book. He has produced a superb piece of work!

Mathematica is an excellent program, with good built-in and online documentation - although many feel the Documentation Centre in version 6 is not as good as the Help Browser in version 5.2. But sooner or later you will find a problem for which the official Mathematica documentation does not help. The program can then be very frustrating, as the syntax is complicated and error messages can be very cryptic. Help online is painfully slow, as the official resource, the news group comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica (Mathgroup), is moderated, so help requests have to be approved before they will appear. (The newsgroup sci.math.symbolic is sometimes helpful and since its not controlled by Wolfram Research, posts appear immediately). Hence Mathematica users will need one or more good books - more so than with other similar programs such as Maple or Matlab.

In addition to the book Mathematica Navigator by Ruskeepaa, I own several other books on Mathematica, including:
* The Mathematica Book, Fifth Edition by Stephen Wolfram
* The Mathematica Guidebook: Programming by Michael Trott.
* The Mathematica GuideBook for Symbolics (w/ DVD) by Michael Trott.
* Schaum's Outline of Mathematica by Eugene Don
* An Introduction to Programming with Mathematica, Third Edition by Paul Wellin
* Programming in Mathematica (3rd Edition) by Roman Maeder - I also own the first edition.
* The Beginners Guide to MathematicaRG, Version 4 by Jerry Glynn and Theordore Gray

plus a few more old books I've either had a very long time or bought very cheaply on Amazon.

Given the choice of only one book, I would choose Mathematica Navigator by Ruskeepaa. It comes with a CD-ROM which has the whole contents of the book, which may be integrated into Mathematica's help system. It's not unique in that respect, as so do Micheal Trott's Mathematica Guidebooks, but they have far too much irrelevant material in them. Ruskeepaa's book sticks to important facts about Mathematica. The book covers a wide range of topics. Sometimes I wish in more depth, but the book offers a good compromise between width and depth. In particular, the information on writing Mathematica programs is far too short, so its unlikely to satisfy someone wanting to write a major Mathematica package. For writing packages, Programming in Mathematica (3rd Edition) by Roman Maeder based on Mathematica 3 is arguably still the best, although Maeder's 1997 book is very old.

The only significant fault I can find of Ruskeepaa's book is its age. Mathematica 6 is a really major upgrade from 5 with many functions now built into the kernel which previously needed to be loaded from packages. Many functions or options have been deprecated. As such, some of the information is no longer accurate. But given at the time of writing (December 2007) there is no book on Mathematica 6 published, I think Ruskeepaa's book, which is based on version 5, is the best Mathematica users can get. However, if by the time you read this, someone has published a book on Mathematica 6, then it might be worth buying that instead.

I would have given this 5 stars, but it is getting a bit dated now.

I started learning Mathematica with this book, and it got me up and running quickly. Concepts are presented in order (if a technique is used that hasn't been introduced yet, the reference to later in the book is always included). Explanations are clear. Multiple examples are included for more difficult concepts.

What's more, it's a great reference... A good index and appropriate references are provided. I really couldn't fault this book in any way.

While it is unlikely that there is a pure Mathematica course anywhere, the textbook for it already exists!
Mathematica Navigator by Heikki Ruskeepaa is an absolutely wonderful book that teaches you everything you ever wanted to know about Mathematica.
Out of about 10 books I've used, this book is THE BEST on Mathematica out there.

As another reviewer has already pointed out, much of the material in this book is just a rehashed version of the Mathematica v6.0 documentation -- written by someone with a rather quirky grasp of English as a second language. However, Mathematica is now up to version 8, so the book is already out of date. Given that "Mathematica Navigator" is nothing but a feature-by-feature overview of Mathematica, it's not clear what value it offers.

In comparing the third edition of "Mathematica Navigator" to a friend's copy of the second edition, I also noticed that the publisher has significantly decreased the size of the typeface used in the body of the text. This appears to be the publisher's strategy for including extra topics without adding many extra pages. Unfortunately, it makes the book very painful to read.

At first glance, "Mathematica Navigator" gives the impression of being useful, but after reading it, the truth becomes clear: It's just the Mathematica documenation repackaged, printed in a typeface guaranteed to induce eye strain.

I have several books covering Mathematica. Ruskeepaa's book is the one I turn to most often. Of specific interest to me is its coverage of Mathemtica applied to problems in optimizaion and statistics.

The first two editions of this book covered Mathematica versions up to version 5. Mathematica's latest versions 6&7 are greatly different from those previous Mathematica versions, epecially in the areas of graphics and animations.

This third edition covers all the applicable material from those first two editions plus it a great primer for all those new features in Mathematica ver6&7. The examples are very clear and understandable.

So even if you're already familiar with ver 5., this book will help you quickly grasp and use those new ver6&7 features.

As did the first two editions, this third edition comes with a CD that contains the entire book in Mathematica notebook form. It comes with instructions that tell you how to easily make the book accessible from Mathematica's online documentation.

First and foremost, I'd like to say that I haven't finished using this book as of today, 4/22/09. This book is surprisingly detailed for a beginner/intermediate level. It starts with Mathematica refreshers for non-beginners, but it also serves well (albeit quick paced) for beginners. It picks up important points about basic data files, graphics and/or plots, data manipulations that serve as critical foundations prior to hitting the specific mathematical topics such as calculus and matrices. I find it to be a succinct hands-on approach to Mathematica with the aim on using the program to attack problems rather than build theories. This is NOT the book to learn Mathematica in its entirety. Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica Handbook is the book if you want to learn Mathematica Inside Out. If you want to learn Mathematica quickly and use it to solve problems and build models via simulations, this is the book you'd want to go with.