Cheap Mathematica 5.1 (Software) (Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 98, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000) Price

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Customer Reviews of Mathematica 5.1

Not User Friendly
I purchased Mathematica 5.2 and the Mathematica Link for Excel. I installed both and then started reading the user manual that accompanied the link for excel. First, I couldn't find how to launch the Mathematica toolbar from within Excel. The manual directed me to a subdirectory that was supposed to be there as part of the installation, but it wasn't. I finally found the source files and got the toolbar set up. Next, I went through the manual page by page doing all of the examples. The first few were simple math equations and all went well. When I got to the first graphics example, however, the product did not work. I typed everything very carefully but no graphical object appeared. Keep in mind that I'm only on page 13 of manual here, so nothing complicated. <
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>I phone technical support at Mathematica and, sure enough, their software has the SAME problems. So we try to work through the issues, and finally my tech support person says that he has to go to a meeting. Wow. At this point I'm terribly frustrated. I just wasted more than a half-hour with this guy and he has to go to a meeting?? What kind of product service is this? <
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>I suggest you think strongly before buying this product if you're going to need tech support.

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Powerful and fast, though very difficult to begin with
I am an advanced tenth-grade math student and I have to say that Mathematica has helped tremendously. I have used it over the past two years to check answers, analyze lab reports and statistics, and create stunning visualizations and animations for my presentations. I've been able to actually explore more advanced math with this product! I plan to continue using this through calculus and even through college. <
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>This program is impossible to just jump into. You have to learn tons of functions before you can create more advanced projects. If you've never dealt with programming languages before, I would advise you to use a different product. If you need Mathematica, you probably already know that you need Mathematica. <
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>Basically, Mathematica is a highly efficient and lightning-fast programming language. For example, it finds the determinant of a 250x250 matrix in about a second. It can solve pretty much any problem you can give to it. The trick is knowing what to tell it--and after two years of using the program every day, I probably know only about 20% of the functions. <
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>The interface is very different from most programs. You cannot find what you want to do in a menu; rather, you must type the function you are looking for. However, there is an extremely extensive help system that will be there for you. <
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>If you're a professional, you save a ton of money by buying this on Amazon. If you're a legitimate student, though, I suggest you purchase Mathematica for Students (not available at Amazon, but $139.95 at Wolfram's website). (You didn't think a high school student could afford the commercial license, did you?)