Scientific Software?

Question

I am looking for a scientific software that can write mathematical and chemical reactions.

(FreeWares First)

Thanks

Answer 1

If you are looking for something that can write the formulas, I agree with the first poster. If you are looking for something that can solve and print the problems, Wolfram's Mathematica is the best way to go. It's expensive but if you are a student, you can pick up the software at a substantial discount. (Makes calculus a breeze!)

Answer 2

If you simply need software you can write mathematical and chemical formulae in, my first choice would be LaTeX. It'll take time to learn though, as it's (scientific) typesetting software, which means you layout whole documents with it (just like Word, except it's more like you're writing in a programming language).

For a LaTeX tutorial, see my sources. LaTeX natively supports typesetting of mathematical equations, and there are various packages that allow you to typeset chemical equations (but I haven't used them yet, so I don't know them yet).

For Windows, you should download and install MiKTeX. See my sources.

For Unix-like operating systems, you should get TeX Live, which is available for most Linux-based software distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Fedora). If you can't get it the trivial way (synaptic, apt-get, emerge, ...), see my sources.

My second choice (in Windows) would be OpenOffice.org Math or, if you have MS Office, the Equation Editor in MS Word; in the menu bar, click insert, object, select Equation Editor, click insert and have fun.