| Hello and welcome to the first Mathematica Assignment! This one
is pretty straightforward - the main goal is to get Mathematica downloaded
to your computer. You'll also need to download the Mathematica "notebook"
file fall03lab1.nb (actually, you can download it now if you'd like by
pressing the shift key and clicking on the fall03lab1.nb
link at the same time - you just won't be able to access the file yet without
the Mathematica program installed). By working your way through the
Mathematica file you'll be able to learn some basic Mathematica commands.
The actual assignment consists of producing a cool space curve that you
need to print out and turn in to your CA. Note, you don't actually
have to have your own copy of Mathematica - if you'd prefer, you can do
this whole lab on one of the computers in the basement of the Science Center
(you'll still need to download the notebook to work on).
The due date for doing all this is Wednesday, October 15th for the MWF sections, or Thursday, October 16th for the Tue/Thur sections. After you've gotten everything downloaded and you've gotten going on the lab itself, it shouldn't take more than an hour or so to do the assignment. Be sure to start the process of doing this assignment as soon as you can - some students have run into some difficulties with the downloads, and putting this off to the last minute will cause you a lot of unnecessary anxiety! Besides, Mathematica is a lot of fun to work with, so you might as well start using it as soon as possible (you can start taking a look at graphs of functions in 3D, and examine parametric surfaces). |
| Steps to take - first consult the Mathematica
at Harvard page for instructions on how to get Mathematica on your
own computer, how to get documentation etc. (On Windows machines you may also get a newer
version of mathematica
from the FAS Software Download page,
but you still need to follow the intructions from the other page on how to get your password.)
The computer labs in
the basement of the Science Center (Unix, PC and Mac) all already have Mathematica installed.
Just getting started with the computer assignment will probably be the
biggest challenge. To run Mathematica on your own computer you'll need
to get a password from the Harvard Mathematica site license people, and
this can take a day to get. So... start early (in fact why
not start now!). Instructions on how to use the notebooks and how to get
credit can be found in the first notebook. When stuck, the FAQ
page should help. Good luck!
Next, to download a Mathematica notebook, click on the link below while
holding down the shift key. Save the notebook on your computer and open
this notebook in Mathematica. (On a Mac or PC start up Mathematica and
read in the file "fall03lab1.nb" like in any other software applications,
in Unix (Linux) just type "mathematica fall03lab1.nb" in a x-terminal).
This notebook was saved with Mathematica 4.1. It can be used with Mathematica
4.0 also (just ignore the warnings).
|
| Download | ||
|---|---|---|
| fall03lab1.nb | ||
| Last update 10/1/2003 |