Mathcad 11

Rating:
Summary: Major shortcomings
Review: Mathcad seems at first glance to have the necessary features to be a useful tool for mathematical derivations in science and engineering. Some of its limitations make it far less useful than it first appears, however, and can be a source of frustration.

The limitations I describe below all pertain to symbolic manipulation. If you do not need symbolic manipulation, Mathcad will work fine. However, if this is the case, there are far better tools, like MATLAB, that I would recommend instead.

Limitation #1: Inability to assign symbolic results to variables

Mathcad has some good capabilities as far as simplifying expressions, performing calculus operations, etc. However, in order to make a derivation manageable, it is usually necessary to break it up into several steps. In Mathcad, all the steps must be on a single line. They cannot be broken up into multiple lines, since this would require assigning intermediate results to variables, a feature not supported my Mathcad.

For example, if I want to find the derivative of x^2, and then evaluate it at x=2, I am forced to do this two step derivation in a single line. While in this simple case, this is not a problem, it is easy to imagine that for a more complicated derivation, it would result in a single line of unmanageable complexity.

2. Symbolic operations do not work on matrices

to see this, make a matrix with columns x and x^2, and try to take its derivative.


Instead of Mathcad, I would recommend MAPLE or Mathematica for mathematical derivations, and TeX for entering equations.


Rating:
Summary: Essential Toolbox For Working Engineers And Students
Review: I bought the upgrade version on Amazon.

If you are a mathematics or engineering student or a working engineer or mathematician who frequently does beyond-spreadsheet mathematics, you need a math package. There are several competing products: Mathcad, Maple, Mathematica. MatLab and others. Most are very expensive items; but the student versions (full or nearly full versions in many cases) are reasonably priced.

While Mathcad covers a very wide range of mathematical tools, you will want to be sure that the package you select fits your particular work environment. Students will find that their department probably has a preferred product. Working engineers and mathematicians in large companies will get the product from their employer. If you are already well acquainted with your computational needs, the websites all have ample information or trial installations permitting you to compare yout favorite tools.

Mathcad 11 installs quickly and with no problem. The package includes a 473-page reference book, which is also on the CD. Activation is required and was painless; and you are allowed installations on a home and work computer with one license. Running on Windows 2000 Professional, I got an error message or two during heavy use the first week; but nothing that could not be ignored.

Help includes lots of tutorials and spreadsheets. I bought a couple of third-party references but found the CD and the Mathcad book better and sufficient.

The interface is simple enough; but it takes a while to get used to the tools for integration, differentiation, factoring, series expansion, Fourier and Laplace transforms, etc. on what Mathcad calls the symbolics menu.

On a few occasions I was disappointed that Mathcad would not accept perfectly valid mathematical expressions but instead required me to use its more limited notation.

Mathcad permits you to work with full sets of units and conversions are quite simple except that you cannot simply create or substitute units that are anything other than a multiple of the Mathcad standard units. In Mathcad (but not real life) the US system is: feet (ft), pounds (lb), seconds (sec), coulombs (coul), Kelvin (K). Since the conversion to Fahrenheit degrees includes an offset, conversion requires the user to create some simple functions. (This was annoying at first but OK once I got used to it.)

Mathcad has extensive support for OLE, ActiveX, VBScript, JavaScript and integrates well with Excel and other office tools. All of the common cut and paste (and paste special) functionality between OLE applications seems to work fine. You can access data directly too from attached hardware in a lab environment (but this is not Mathcad's strength).

Rating:
Summary: THE TOOLL THAT STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS USE.
Review: Use the tool that students and educators at more than 2,000 colleges and universities around the world are already using in their math, science and engineering departments. Through its patented technology and use of natural math notation, Mathcad lets students easily manipulate math and see the results change instantly, creating an unparalleled learning experience. Students and teachers can then focus on math concepts rather than getting bogged down in software syntax. Built-in examples, tutorials and reference material make Mathcad 11 the ideal calculation tool for both professors and students.

Here are just some of the benefits of using Mathcad:

- Cross-disciplinary
If the curriculum contains math content, any student capable of taking the course is capable of writing, calculating, manipulating, and visualizing it directly in Mathcad. The benefits of powerful math software are no longer reserved for advanced students using programming packages.

- Transparent

Mathcad is truly intuitive and easy-to-use. It's the only calculation tool that allows you to seamlessly work with math in real notation, just as you would using paper and pencil. This ability provides an unparalleled learning experience, so students can focus on developing a true understanding of the mathematical material, not of Mathcad itself.

- Widespread.
Mathcad's calculation tools are used daily by millions of engineers and scientists to solve the most demanding problems. As such, it easily handles college-level problems, and will serve students into their professional careers.

Mathcad 11 makes it simple to publish and view mathematics on the Web and still read them into Mathcad for further calculation, without needing any special browser plug-ins. This makes Mathcad the ideal Internet Course Authoring Tool.