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Is there a way to use actual symbols (like the square root symbol instead of writing "sqrt()" and integral and sum/product signs instead of "integrate", "sum", etc.) as in Mathematica?

horchler
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Raksha
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3 Answers3

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Partially, but not within the main part of Matlab.

If you use MuPAD (type mupad in your Command Window), the engine behind much of the Symbolic Math toolbox, you can display/print results from calculations in your notebook with various levels of formatting. However, it does not appear that one can display what one enters with such formatting. Like Mathematica, MuPAD does have a graphical toolbar interface for selecting various commonly used types of mathematical operations.

Matlab was originally developed as a programming environment for numerical calculations and programs, whereas Mathematica was developed primarily as a tool for mathematicians to perform symbolic math and typeset their equations in a virtual notebook.


Aside: Though the MuPAD environment is distinct, one can access all of it's fuctionallity from within Matlab. See here for how to call MuPAD functions. Some examples: 1, 2, and 3.

Community
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horchler
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Nope - it's how MATLAB was written. As far as I am aware, Mathematica is the only tool that uses symbolic notation for actual code.

I think a problem with having symbols instead of code is that you now need a way of writing those symbols (a menu bar, a tablet input, etc.) that would make it extremely cumbersome for a user.

mprat
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  • i see, that's too bad ... and no, you don't necessarily need any special way of writing them. You still type out the function name, it just gets converted to a symbol. Like you can type "esc"int"esc" and it will turn into an integral sign in Mathematica. It's shorter than typing "Integrate" and takes up less space, makes equations neater. – Raksha May 16 '15 at 20:53
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    I'd guess that there are others, e.g., Maple. Even the Grapher app, though simple, that comes free with OS X supports this. See also [this list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_editor). – horchler May 16 '15 at 21:08
  • Whoa! Mathematica has handwriting recognition?! I gotta check that out now :D Nice list. Thanks! – Raksha May 16 '15 at 21:28
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Matlab is based on its diversity of toolbox, one of the toolbox support the symbolic notions you mention is the Symbolic Math Toolbox.

The Math Toolbox includes the MuPAD language. MuPAD is similar to Mathematica language, and here is a basic tutorial of MuPAD tutorial

In addition to Matlab, if you want Symbolic notation, IPython Notebook also use the actual Symbols. And it is faster, newer and easy to use.

Hope this will help you.

zzhang
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