Re: More Mathematica CAN'T do than CAN???
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg113352] Re: More Mathematica CAN'T do than CAN???
- From: Leonid Shifrin <lshifr at gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 06:39:24 -0400 (EDT)
Nicholas, I think the statement that Mathematica can or can not do something is not meaningful without specifying the exact problem. And in any case, the point is not that Mathematica can do this or that, but that the user of Mathematica is able to do a lot more with it than without it. A lot depends on the user. Mathematica is not just a system, but an extensible and powerful programming language. If it is missing some feature, you can teach it. But as any sophisticated tool, it requires some time investment of the user's side. So the users who count on "out of the box" solutions for non-trivial problems may sometimes be disappointed. This situation is not specific to Mathematica though, this is true for any tool. In fact, I find it quite amazing how much Mathematica *can* do out of the box. Regards, Leonid On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 6:05 AM, Nicholas Kormanik <nkormanik at gmail.com>wrote: > > A few evenings ago I was speaking with a "learned mathematician" at > the local university here. In the course of our wide-ranging talk, he > stated that Mathematica is only capable of doing less than half the > problems in mathematics today. > > I was floored at his assertion. I have only scratched the surface of > all that Mathematica can do. > > There's tons more that it CAN'T do??? > > Your comments are welcome. > > Nicholas Kormanik > >