Computational Physics Summer School


Laboratory
Introduction to Mathematica


Intercall site

Introduction

This is the online documentation for the Mathematica Laboratories. They complement the lectures of Dr. P. Abbott.

On all non-Unix machines MATHEMATICA is invoked by double clicking on the mathematica icon. A good way to introduce yourself to MATHEMATICA is with the "Getting Started..." option in the Help Menu. Selecting "Open Function Browser..." from the Help Menu opens a heirarchical index of all the MATHEMATICA commands. A brief introduction to each is given.


Things to Try

Mathematica commands are executed by pressing the "enter" key or the "shift-return" key combination. For example typing "2+2" followed by "enter" should produce the result "4". (MATHEMATICA doesn't load the kernel when the front-end starts so getting 4 may take a few seconds the first time). Try executing the following examples:

Abbott's Notebooks

These are now available on Macs from the didyma server. This server may be opened by selecting the "didyma" item in the apple menu at the top left. In the ITS user area "didyma" needs to be opened manually as follows:
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Last Update 12 January 1996