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Mathematica beyond mathematics

For the past 25 years I’ve been conducting Mathematica seminars and teaching students how to develop applications using the program in a wide variety of campuses. These experiences have taught me several things:

i. A majority of both experienced users and newcomers, still think erroneously that Mathematica is mostly a language for solving symbolic math problems.

ii. Plenty of long-term users are not aware of many of the new capabilities that that have been added to the program over the years.

iii. The number of functions available has grown enormously and now there are more than 6,000. With so many functions, it very time consuming to learn about them using the extensive Wolfram documentation.

I decided to address these issues and show that the program has capabilities that go beyond math calculations writing a book (Mathematica beyond mathematics). Throughout the text, Mathematica’s features, including of course the latest ones, are introduced while solving problems in many different fields such as: astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, finance, geography, linguistics and nuclear physics among many others (See Contents) . When choosing the problems, I have relied on my own experience and also modified a few selected examples from Wolfram Research vast information resources. At the end of each chapter there’re also additional sources to further explore the topics. I have also strived to avoid writing too complicated programs and except in a reduced number of cases, all the examples contain just a few lines of code.

12 Replies
Posted 5 years ago
POSTED BY: Updating Name
Posted 5 years ago

Or apply the rule to the right level.

Replace[list, {a_, b_, c_} -> a/(b + c), 2]
POSTED BY: Rohit Namjoshi
Posted 5 years ago
POSTED BY: Paul Horth

In fairness, it should be noted that in his presentations, Stephen Wolfram often emphasizes using Mathematica in various areas outside of mathematics proper; indeed, he sometimes almost grudgingly shows new mathematical features. See, e.g.: https://www.twitch.tv/stephen_wolfram

POSTED BY: Murray Eisenberg
Posted 7 years ago

Which recent versions of Mathematica are covered by the book?

POSTED BY: Eric L

Math 11.0.1 (tested with 11.1)

Guillermo

Looks like a great book.

About (iii), I see from the table of contents that this is a big book. To learn Wolfram Language, you are probably not suggesting to read the whole book, but it is enough to do chapters 1-3 (and maybe skip part of 3). One doesn't need to learn 6000 functions. I am wondering how many functions do you think someone needs to learn?

Out of curiosity, are you planning to make a Spanish version?

POSTED BY: Todd Rowland

Your question doesn't have a precise answer. The book shows how a newcomer can start to use the language without knowing any functions (using the natural language and Wolfram Alpha). However some knowledge is recommended. I think even advanced users can find funny the examples used. In the book are used about 1000 functions, and the most important: the user will have learnt how to browse to find an appropriate function for his case. Thank you. Guillermo

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