| 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
Spring05Lab1.nb (actually, you can download it now if you'd like by pressing
the shift key and clicking on the Spring05Lab1.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, March 4th for all sections. Turn in your printout from the first lab to your CA's mailbox that's located in the black filing cabinet to the left of room 310 in the Science Center at some point on Friday. 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 "Spring05Lab1.nb" like in any other software applications,
in Unix (Linux) just type "mathematica Spring05Lab1.nb" in a x-terminal).
This notebook was saved with Mathematica 5.0, although it should run fine
with Mathematica 5.1 and it can be used with Mathematica 4.0 also (just
ignore any warnings that are produced).
|
| Download | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spring05Lab1.nb | ||