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Originally Posted by SonofJud  Haha nah, freshman in college, but all of my math profs and tas have told us that its a good idea to learn it for later. The equation editor thing in Word has always bothered me, and if I want to write pretty equations I'd rather just know LaTeX. Plus it has matrices and all of that other jazz. |
I majored in math and physics in college. LaTeX is very good for typesetting equations. It is used primarily by mathematicians, theoretical physicists, and procrastinating grad students. But virtually nobody else uses it. I went to school in the computer age, and my math and physics profs were perfectly happy to see handwritten assignments. Many still wrote out their course materials by hand.
As a physicist in the "real world," pretty equations are simply not on my radar. I don't use very many equations in reports because nobody wants to see them. When I arrive at a result, I typically leave my derivations in their original format, which could even be handwritten sheets scanned into my computer. I am far more interested in learning to use software tools that help me develop and test my ideas, produce results, and ensure their accuracy.
+1 about MatLab. I don't use it much, but a lot of my colleagues do, when they want to work with numbers. It is a good way to learn programming without being burdened by the overhead of languages and operating systems that will be obsolete by the time you graduate.
In addition, I suggest learning a computer algebra system (CAS) tool like Mathematica or Maple. This is how I do derivations, and there are mathematicians who use it for proofs as well. It doesn't do the real work, but lets you guide a derivation while minimizing dumb mistakes.
If you don't have generous student discounts, there are free tools: Gnu Octave instead of MatLab, and Maxima instead of Mathematica. The commercial tools have better user interfaces and graphics, but the free stuff is certainly functional.
And don't forget that the most widely used computational tool is MS Excel. If you don't like MS stuff, Open Office has a good equation editor, and I think it lets you enter equations using LaTeX syntax.
