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Materials for absolute beginner

Posted 3 months ago

Hello,

Could anyone point me to absolute beginner resources for Wolfram? I've looked in the Documentation Centre, but the resources there seem too advanced for me.

I also Googled "Wolfram getting started", but again the results seemed too advanced for me.

I'm looking for absolute beginner resources, i.e. for an absolute maths beginner.

Thank you

POSTED BY: Karami Karami
5 Replies

Maybe you didn't find the actual answers. I found the answer (in code) to the exercise you quoted here: https://www.wolfram.com/language/elementary-introduction/3rd-ed/answers-to-exercises.html

I'm not sure why you didn't find that. It's labeled "Answers to Exercises" in the table of contents.

Do you have access to Mathematica? I cannot imagine learning a computer language without access to a computer system in which I can test and repeat with variations the things I am being taught.

If you do have access, then you must have executed the examples in the text. The first few of the exercises you couldn't understand ask you to build on the text. They ask you to do one with a number like 4 instead of 10. Naturally, you tried to see what happens when you use 4 instead of 10 in the example code, and find it works. Some of the problems have a different number instead of 10, which suggests a different number should put in the code.

If you do not know what functions are, you will find learning computer programming hard, whatever language you study. It may be difficult even if you have only a weak understanding of them from precalculus. The text shows some examples where the output of one function becomes the input of another. The one exercise you cited as an example assumes you understood this and can figure out how to put the output of RandomInteger into Range (or vice versa, whichever way you find that it works). If you don't know enough math to understand how composition works, then this problem probably feels bewildering. You may need to learn more math. The problem also spirals back to the previous lesson and asks you to recall (or relearn) how RandomInteger works.

If you do not have access to Mathematica, then — good news! — there's a link to WolframCloud in the online text, where you get a live notebook with the exercises and an input cell you can use to try out your code. It will check your output, too. Just click the "Check your answers in the Wolfram Cloud" button on the right side of the Exercises header. (At least I assume everybody can use it; I have an account, so I can't be sure.)

I always felt that if I had to look up the answer before I figured it out, then I hadn't really learned what I should have learned. Of course, sometimes when I checked my answer, I found out that was still true. One of the things that made learning Mathematica a bit easier for me, was that I could quickly execute my attempts. You can see if you're right on your own. And if it worked, it was easy to make a small change and see if the result was what I imagined would happen. A machine that would check my work was at my finger tips. That generally was not the case in my school courses.

POSTED BY: Michael Rogers
Posted 3 months ago

Thanks. I took a look at the online book you recommended. Unfortunately I got stuck at Chapter 3 ("First Look at Lists") as I couldn't understand the exercises.

Here's an example of one of the exercises:

Use Range and Random Integer to make a list with a random length up to 10

There are no detailed solutions provided (only a field called "Sample Expected Output"), so unless you can figure it out for yourself you are stuck.

POSTED BY: Karami Karami
Posted 3 months ago

If you have Mathematica installed, you should be able to access the help/reference documents. So, search the help docs for Range and RandomInteger. There will be examples that you can copy-paste into a notebook. Play around with the examples until you find a solution.

When you say "I couldn't understand the exercises", can you be more specific about what's confusing you? Have you been able to figure out how to evaluate anything yet? Are you struggling with syntax?

People here will be very willing to help you, but you really ought to put some effort in first. And you'll get more responses if you ask specific questions rather than just ask for general help.

Also, consider looking for YouTube videos. Maybe watching will be easier for you than reading.

POSTED BY: Eric Rimbey
Posted 3 months ago

Hi Karami,

I don't know your current maths level but I think the most basic maths course from Wolfram U would be Introduction to Elementary Algebra. If you are looking for materials below algebra, you can check out Khan Academy! I hope this helps!

POSTED BY: Tingting Zhao
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