Rating: 
Summary: why buy it?
Review: the entire text of this book is included with mathematica, and if youre not going to buy the software, why buy the book? and if you are going to purchase the software, since it is included in the help file, why buy it? hmm. i suppose i lack the abstractive capacity to answer this question in any way supplemental to mr. wolfram's income. besides, there are problems with this book which, from the standpoint of an individual trying to learn the use of the software, may be summarized as incompleteness. do you want to plot a graph of the equation |x-y|+|x|+|y| <= 2? you will not find instructions on how to do it. for more complex functions, there is some, albeit sketchy, material to assist you; though, if you possess a sufficiently versatile comprehension of mathematics and programming, no doubt you'll puzzle out the necessary steps to produce graphic representations of whatever kind you may wish to plot. for the majority of students, who lack this kind of wisdom, i fear the information to make such graphs must be found in other books. i developed a definite resentment to mr wolfram when i attempted to locate the procedure for plotting the above equation, and, upon following the link to the information found a "buy the calculus whiz at 69.95 to find this out" blurb. stunning. buy this software, buy my reference book, and then, buy other books from me to find out how to use what my software and book--despite an advertised promise to enable, through these materials, the user with adequate information to empower his mathematical needs in toto--will not show you. i say, don't buy it. and, as an aside, don't buy his other book, "a new kind of science", either. that work could have been encapsulated in a monograph of some 30 pages; but then, you'd not have lined mr. wolfram's pockets to the tune of 50.00 dollars, would you? i have a suspicion mr wolfram is committed to said mr. wolfram's pockets, and his new science pretty much amounts to using all manner of shenanigans to stuff 'em. certainly, from the point of view of an irate purchaser of the software, this book, as with the manual "mathematica" is so much misspent dinero. caveat emptor. now i know why matlab is the preferred algebraic program among literate users.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, The Definitive Text for Mathematica 3.0 !
Review: The only and the best reference for Mathematica 3.0.
Written by the chief architect himself and founder of
Wolfram Research. I know of no text anywhere in
physics or general science for that matter, covering
any subject that compares to the depth and detail that
is contained in this book written by Dr. Wolfram. This
book is an absolute must for anyone wishing to know all
the details about the latest release of Mathematica. It
is about 50% longer than the second edition, and includes
many new features on how to take full advantage of
Version 3.0. I wholly recommend this text!
Rating:
Summary: The reference, not the tutorial
Review: There's a lot of power in Mathematica, as a symbolic algebra system, as super-powered calculator, for basic graphics, and even for limited kinds of text preparation. This puts essentially all of that power in your hands.You had better have strong hands. This is as thick as most two books on my shelf. That's what it takes, though, to describe something as featureful as Mathematica. Just about any function you ever heard of, it has. It also has the derivative and integral, in symbolic form, and maybe even a moment generating function, if that applies. It's all there and it's indexed fairly well. That won't help the beginner struggling with the basic syntax or programming model. The pattern matching is not at all intuitive, if you've been programming in procedural or OO languages - a Prolog background would serve you better. Combinations of code, formatted text, and graphics are also possible, but no always easy to work out from this text. This is not a primer, it's an encyclopedia. That's what I want, though: the language, the library, and an organization that doesn't hide them. It's not a user-friendly introduction, but I'm not a very friendly user.
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the finest book ever assembled on a software package
Review: This book is by far the best available on Mathematica, and perhaps the best I've ever seen for a book about a software package. The index is extremely complete; you can easily find whatever it is you're looking for.
Rating:
Summary: THE Referrence Book to Mathematica
Review: This is the most complete reference book for the Mathematica system. However, be aware of the fact that it doesn't treat any topic in great detail (for instance, it doesn't provide a single example of a complete Mathematica program). There are many texts available for specific purposes, but this is the one that gives you the broad picture (version 3.0 comes with the Mathematica Book on line, but studying something from the screen can be a bit annoying).
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