Keeping It Simple

By Barry Simon

How much mathematical power are you willing to trade for ease of use and a lower price? For those whose answer is none, Wolfram Research has covered the high-end, high-powered math segment with Mathematica since 2001. But on the other end of the market it has CalcCenter, and the recently released $595 CalcCenter 3 is a pleasant development for those of us with modest calculational needs. This version adds exact calculation with fractions, new import/export formats, and the significant speed improvements on numerical calculations that Mathematica introduced in version 5.0.

Underlying CalcCenter is the Mathematica engine and command line set to understand only a subset of Mathematica’s functions. Version 3’s key to its ease of use are the roughly 500 “controllers” that shortcut the need for detailed command line input. Many call up Instant Calculators with fill-in-the-blank forms for anything from generating random numbers to computing Bessel functions.

Included in the product are small subsets of Mathematica’s vast subsets of functions, operations, and graphics that will remain plenty for many users. The functions include trigonometric, hyperbolic, and the Bessel J and K functions. Statistical functions include the basic ones with about a dozen built-in distributions such as lognormal and hypergeometric distributions. Symbolic operators include the most basic operations of calculus, matrix manipulation (including eigenvalues), and even an ODE and PDE solver.

Graphics offer 2D plots including parametric plots, a variety of 3D plots, and some list plots. A wonderful device is a controller called SmartPlot that decides—based on input—what kind of plot to display and handles both 2D and 3D plots.

While CalcCenter doesn’t have an extensive programming language,  you are able to define functions, even using recursive definitions and a few basic looping operations.

Of course, you shouldn’t expect anything like the capabilities of Mathematica despite the shared parentage and feel of Mathematica. Exact rational arithmetic is now supported, but you can still only do 10 decimal place operations.

I was surprised at some of the missing operations such as Sum:. Mathematica can compute the symbolic sum from 1 to n of the square of j for example, but CalcCenter can’t even compute the sum from 1 to 10 with a single command input (though, of course you could write out the 10 numbers or write your own do-loop).

Despite its claims of being easy to use, the program has some of Mathematica’s syntax quirks that tend to drive occasional users batty. Regular users,  however, quickly get used to them. For example, you have to hit Shift-Enter after entering a command. Simply hitting Enter alone allows additional input rather than executing the command. And don’t try to use sin]x] or Sin(x):. If you don’t use Sin]x] with a Cap S and brackets, CalcCenter will complain.

The main competitors of this program are Excel and Mathcad. Each is more powerful than CalcCenter in its own way, but for what it does accomplish,  CalcCenter is easier to use. It will be a welcome program for those whose needs are limited to its relatively simple scope.

Contributing Editor Barry Simon is chairman of the math department at the California Institute of Technology. You can send him your thoughts about this article via e-mail by clicking here. Please reference “CalcCenter, February 2006” in your message.

Product Information

Calculation Center 3.0
Price
$595

Requirements
Windows 98 or later or Macintosh OS X, 64MB RAM, 115 MB disk space

Wolfram Research, Inc.
Champaign, IL