Math 21a Fall 2004 Mathematica Assignment 1

Hello and welcome to the first Mathematica Assignment!  This one is pretty straightforward - the main goal is to make sure Mathematica is downloaded to your computer and that you learn the basics on how to operate it.  You'll also need to download the Mathematica "notebook" file Fall04Lab1.nb (actually, you can download it now if you'd like by pressing the shift key and clicking on the Fall04Lab1.nb link at the same time). 

The actual assignment consists of producing an interesting 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 Friday, October 22nd for the MWF sections, or Thursday, October 21st for the Tues/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 two at most to do the assignment. 

Be sure to start the process of doing this assignment as soon as you can - some students have run into difficulties with the downloads and getting passwords (with any luck you've already done this!) 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 cool functions in 3D).

Steps to take - first consult the Downloading Mathematica for instructions on how to get Mathematica on your own computer. The computer labs in the basement of the Science Center (Unix, PC and Mac) all already have Mathematica installed, so if you aren't able to download Mathematica onto your own computer and get a password, you can just do the assignment in the Science Center instead. If you haven't yet set up Mathematica to run on your own computer then you'll need to get a password from the Harvard Mathematica site license people, and this can take a day to get.  So do that right now!  Instructions on how to use Mathematica and what to do to get credit for the assignment can be found in the first Mathematica notebook.  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 "Fall04Lab1.nb" like in any other software applications, in Unix (Linux) just type "mathematica Fall04Lab1.nb" in a x-terminal). This notebook was saved with Mathematica 5.0. It can be used with Mathematica 4.0 also (just ignore the warnings). 

Download 
Fall04Lab1.nb 
Last update 10/13/2004