Mathematica Note Mathematica for students is one of the best bargains around. It is the full professional version of Mathematica at a 90% discount. No limits, no restrictions except one: You have to be a student to buy it. (And on account of the 90% discount, we do check.) The most important thing about Mathematica from the point of view of a student is that it's not educational software. It won't quiz you, or stop you from going on until you've finished some silly exercise, and it won't distract you with a bunch of inane animations. Instead, Mathematica is a powerful, open-ended environment what lets you to go off in whatever direction you like, however far you like, with no arbitrary limits. Mathematica opens with a blank page, and it will stubbornly and absolutely refuse to give you any hint about what you might want to do first. That was one of the first decisions I made in the design of the user interface for Mathematica: Like a world processor, which won't tell you want to write, Mathematica won't tell you want to think, do, or explore. That's your job. But once you get started, and once you start learning the language (which takes a day or two, maybe a week if you're over 30), you will find that Mathematica is able to respond to ever more difficult computational questions with alarming speed and depth. It is without question the most powerful interactive computing environment in the world, and if you take the time to learn how to use it, Mathematica will be the most important and most rewarding program you use.