Re: [Phys-l] A Tale of two Calcs

[brian whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net>]

Bob,

I was glad to find out about this freebee.
It has a formalism to be learned, no doubt, and it's not writing  math 
on paper,
but the learning curve does not seem at all steep or precipitous.

Thanks

Brian




On 5/20/2011 5:21 PM, Bob Sciamanda wrote:
> Thanks for SMath, Brian.  A real find.  Also, I found inside an SMath 
> tutorial this reference to Maxima, an even more powerful program (and 
> FREE):
> http://www.neng.usu.edu/cee/faculty/gurro/Maxima.html
> *From:* brian whatcott <mailto:betwys1@sbcglobal.net>
> *Sent:* Thursday, May 19, 2011 6:51 PM
> *To:* Forum for Physics Educators 
> <mailto:phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
> *Subject:* [Phys-l] A Tale of two Calcs
> I caught an ad post extolling the virtues of a new math calc app.
> From Mathcad , a name which I can too easily confuse with Matlab.
>
> It's a presentation quality write it on paper approach, with
> intermediate results available at all times. They offered a month's
> trial, with a puzzle as bait: calculate the dynamics of a
> laser straight railroad tunnel between NY and SF for a given train, with
> given mass air density, coefficient of drag, g constant, effective cross
> section area etc.
> No rolling friction from the maglev - just drag force and gravity....
>
> How much (constant) thrust, to get to the far end?
>
> Toying with getting a copy, I noticed the going price is around $1 with
> three zeroes.
>
> So I started looking for discount/student versions etc.
> And waddaya know: there was SMath - comparable to Mathcad but
> attractively priced - free - with tutorials available too.
>
> So I took a look. This does not produce presentation quality print outs,
> but it does use the solvers and other bells and whistles that the
> high-end calcs offer.
> You might give it a try.
>
> Brian W
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>    *
>       Bob Sciamanda
>       Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (Em)
>       treborsci@verizon.net <mailto:treborsci@verizon.net>
>       http://mysite.verizon.net/res12merh/