Mathics - A free, light-weight alternative to Mathematica

    
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Mathics—to be pronounced like “Mathematics” without the “emat”—is a general-purpose computer algebra system (CAS). It is meant to be a free, light-weight alternative to Mathematica®. It is free both as in “free beer” and as in “freedom”. There are various online mirrors running Mathics but it is also possible to run Mathics locally. A list of mirrors can be found at the Mathics homepage, http://mathics.github.io.

The programming language of Mathics is meant to resemble Wolfram's famous Mathematica® as much as possible. However, Mathics is in no way affiliated or supported by Wolfram. Mathics will probably never have the power to compete with Mathematica® in industrial applications; yet, it might be an interesting alternative for educational purposes.

Why yet another Computer Algebra System?

Mathematica® is great, but it has one big disadvantage: It is not free. On the one hand, people might not be able or willing to pay hundreds of dollars for it; on the other hand, they would still not be able to see what's going on “inside” the program to understand their computations better. That's what free software is for!

Mathics aims at combining the best of both worlds: the beauty of Mathematica® backed by a free, extensible Python core.

Of course, there are drawbacks to the Mathematica® language, despite all its beauty. It does not really provide object orientation and especially encapsulation, which might be crucial for big software projects. Nevertheless, Wolfram still managed to create their amazing Wolfram|Alpha entirely with Mathematica®, so it can't be too bad!

However, it is not even the intention of Mathics to be used in large-scale projects and calculations—at least not as the main framework—but rather as a tool for quick explorations and in educating people who might later switch to Mathematica®.