Sites:
Home > Technical Library

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Mathematica

By Samuel N. Kamin
From Introduction to Programming with Mathematica, Third Edition

Mathematica is a very large and seemingly complex system. It contains hundreds of functions for performing various tasks in science, mathematics, and engineering, including computing, programming, data analysis, knowledge representation, and visualization of information. In this introductory chapter, we introduce the elementary operations in Mathematica and give a sense of its computational and programming breadth and depth. In addition, we give some basic information that users of Mathematica need to know, such as how to start Mathematica, how to get out of it, how to enter simple inputs and get answers, and finally how to use Mathematica's documentation to get answers to questions about the system.

1.1 A brief overview of Mathematica

Numerical computations

Mathematica has been aptly described as a sophisticated calculator. With it you can enter mathematical expressions and compute their values.

You can store values in memory.

    <i class="emphasis">In[2]:=</i> <b class="bold">rent = 350</b>    <i class="emphasis">Out[2]=</i> 350    <i class="emphasis">In[3]:=</i> <b class="bold">food =175</b>    <i class="emphasis">Out[3]=</i> 175    <i class="emphasis">In[4]:=</i> <b class="bold">heat = 83</b>    <i class="emphasis">Out[4]=</i> 83<a name="26"></a><a name="page2"></a>    <i class="emphasis">In[5]:=</i> <b class="bold">rent + food + heat</b>    <i class="emphasis">Out[5]=</i> 608

Yet Mathematica differs from calculators and simple computer programs in its ability to calculate exact results and to compute to an arbitrary degree of precision.

<span class="inlinequation"><span class="inlinemediaobject"><img alt="Image from book"> border="0"> height="74"> id="IMG_2"> src="http://images.books24x7.com/bookimages/id_10817/figu2_1.jpg"> title=""> width="161"></span></span>  ...
Copyright Cambridge University Press 2005 under license agreement with Books24x7
Products & Services
Vacuum Viewports and Access Doors
Vacuum viewports and access doors are components for viewing, accessing or transferring samples or process devices in a vacuum chamber or system.
O-rings
O-rings are solid-rubber seals that are shaped like a doughnut. When pressed between two mating surfaces,  O-rings block the passage of liquids or gases.
Vacuum Valves
Vacuum valves are used when a vacuum must be maintained in a closed system.
Vacuum Flanges and Fittings
Vacuum flanges and fittings connect runs of pipe and tubing in vacuum or process gas system to other tubing sections, pipe, hose, valves, pumps, chambers or other vacuum components.
Topics of Interest

Expressions are the basic building blocks from which everything is built. Their structure, internal representation, and how they are evaluated are essential to understanding Mathematica. In this...

4.2 Functions for manipulating expressions Three of the most powerful and commonly used functions by experienced Mathematica programmers are Map, Apply, and Thread. They provide very sophisticated...

3.1 Defining a Function A function is a rule that assigns to each input exactly one output. Many functions, such as the natural logarithm function Log, are built in to Mathematica. You provide an...

7.5 Exercises Exercise 7.1 We call strong prime an odd prime n such that is prime as well. Prove that we can (heuristically) generate -bit strong primes within a time complexity of...

Programming in Mathematica is essentially a matter of writing user-defined functions that work like mathematical functions; when applied to specific values, they perform computations producing...