Mathematica Navigator: Mathematics, Statistics and Graphics, Third Edition

• Publisher:   Academic Press
• Number Of Pages:   1136
• Publication Date:   2009-03-20
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0123741645
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780123741646

First and foremost, I'd like to say that I haven't finished using this book as of today, 4/22/09. This book is surprisingly detailed for a beginner/intermediate level. It starts with Mathematica refreshers for non-beginners, but it also serves well (albeit quick paced) for beginners. It picks up important points about basic data files, graphics and/or plots, data manipulations that serve as critical foundations prior to hitting the specific mathematical topics such as calculus and matrices. I find it to be a succinct hands-on approach to Mathematica with the aim on using the program to attack problems rather than build theories. This is NOT the book to learn Mathematica in its entirety. Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica Handbook is the book if you want to learn Mathematica Inside Out. If you want to learn Mathematica quickly and use it to solve problems and build models via simulations, this is the book you'd want to go with.

Mathematica is an excellent program, with good built-in and online documentation - although many feel the Documentation Centre in version 6 is not as good as the Help Browser in version 5.2. But sooner or later you will find a problem for which the official Mathematica documentation does not help. The program can then be very frustrating, as the syntax is complicated and error messages can be very cryptic. Help online is painfully slow, as the official resource, the news group comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica (Mathgroup), is moderated, so help requests have to be approved before they will appear. (The newsgroup sci.math.symbolic is sometimes helpful and since its not controlled by Wolfram Research, posts appear immediately). Hence Mathematica users will need one or more good books - more so than with other similar programs such as Maple or Matlab. In addition to the book Mathematica Navigator by Ruskeepaa, I own several other books on Mathematica, including:
* The Mathematica Book, Fifth Edition by Stephen Wolfram
* The Mathematica Guidebook: Programming by Michael Trott.
* The Mathematica GuideBook for Symbolics (w/ DVD) by Michael Trott.
* Schaum's Outline of Mathematica by Eugene Don
* An Introduction to Programming with Mathematica, Third Edition by Paul Wellin
* Programming in Mathematica (3rd Edition) by Roman Maeder - I also own the first edition.
* The Beginners Guide to MathematicaRG, Version 4 by Jerry Glynn and Theordore Gray plus a few more old books I've either had a very long time or bought very cheaply on Amazon. Given the choice of only one book, I would choose Mathematica Navigator by Ruskeepaa. It comes with a CD-ROM which has the whole contents of the book, which may be integrated into Mathematica's help system. It's not unique in that respect, as so do Micheal Trott's Mathematica Guidebooks, but they have far too much irrelevant material in them. Ruskeepaa's book sticks to important facts about Mathematica. The book covers a wide range of topics. Sometimes I wish in more depth, but the book offers a good compromise between width and depth. In particular, the information on writing Mathematica programs is far too short, so its unlikely to satisfy someone wanting to write a major Mathematica package. For writing packages, Programming in Mathematica (3rd Edition) by Roman Maeder based on Mathematica 3 is arguably still the best, although Maeder's 1997 book is very old. The only significant fault I can find of Ruskeepaa's book is its age. Mathematica 6 is a really major upgrade from 5 with many functions now built into the kernel which previously needed to be loaded from packages. Many functions or options have been deprecated. As such, some of the information is no longer accurate. But given at the time of writing (December 2007) there is no book on Mathematica 6 published, I think Ruskeepaa's book, which is based on version 5, is the best Mathematica users can get. However, if by the time you read this, someone has published a book on Mathematica 6, then it might be worth buying that instead. I would have given this 5 stars, but it is getting a bit dated now.

The first two editions of this book covered Mathematica versions up to version 5. Mathematica's latest versions 6&7 are greatly different from those previous Mathematica versions, epecially in the areas of graphics and animations. This third edition covers all the applicable material from those first two editions plus it a great primer for all those new features in Mathematica ver6&7. The examples are very clear and understandable. So even if you're already familiar with ver 5., this book will help you quickly grasp and use those new ver6&7 features. As did the first two editions, this third edition comes with a CD that contains the entire book in Mathematica notebook form. It comes with instructions that tell you how to easily make the book accessible from Mathematica's online documentation.

Very well written and full of useful information to start learning Mathematica. It covers all the foundamentals.

This is a GREAT reference book. You won't learn how to program Mathematica from it. You will learn an amazing amount about how Mathematica works by reading it. If you don't believe me, check out it's thorough explanation of cubic splines. It's better than the Mathematica Help. It also comes with the complete book which can be installed in the Mathematica help system. There is, literally, a wealth of information to work with in this book. I would also strongly recommend getting An Introduction to Programming with Mathematica, Third Edition. This is a first rate "course in a book" for programming. There are other books which are good. Between these two books, you will have an amazing arsenal to work with! Paul

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