Before you can read through this notebook, you need to know several things about ``getting around'' inside the notebook window. This section shows you how to use the mouse to ``scroll'', and how to select, change and delete text.
The mouse is the small rectangular box that is attached to the keyboard. By sliding the mouse on a smooth surface (such as a pad), you can control the movement of the cursor on the screen. You move the cursor to point to items you want to manipulate. There are two "buttons" on the mouse, either of which will (unless altered) work for your purposes.
You can use the mouse and the direction arrows at the bottom left (or right, depending on your system) of the window to scroll up or down through the tutorial:
1. Point the cursor on the `down' arrow that appears at the extreme lower
left corner of this notebook window,
2. Click the mouse button once (the text will move up one line in the
window); or simply
3. Press (and hold down) the button until the desired amount of new text
appears.
You can similarly scroll up, or backwards, by using the `up' arrow.
There is a faster way to move up and down. Inside the grey margin strip at the left (right) of the window is a short vertical bar (the scroll bar). You can use this bar to scroll quickly down, or up, the page:
1. Point the cursor on the scroll bar,
2. Press the button (hold it down), and
3. Drag the scroll bar down or up to correctly position the text.
You will notice that the cursor changes shape as it moves about the screen. If you move the cursor from a position inside this window to a border of the page, or off the page, the cursor will change from a vertical I-beam shape to an arrow. Or, if you slowly move down the page the cursor will occasionally change, briefly, to a horizontal I-beam shape. (This occurs between "cells"s, where a cell is a block of text defined by the bracket, ] , to the right---e.g. see the ] for this paragraph). Move the cursor around and see it change.
The cursor has three basic shapes:
· a vertical I-beam, for selecting text in the window;
· a horizontal I-beam, for opening more work space between paragraphs
(or cells);
· the arrow, for pointing to items bordering, or off, the window.
You will have occasion soon to see the implications of these various shapes.
You can change (edit) text by using the mouse. You can practice adding text right now:
1. Move the cursor to the end of a nearby paragraph,
2. Click the mouse -- a blinking vertical bar will appear,
3. Add new text there by typing something; e.g. type: `Some new stuff'
after this sentence.
Here is how to delete the text added above:
1. Move the cursor to the beginning of your added text, just before the "S"
in Some ,
2. `Select' the text (i.e. press and drag the mouse to the right until the
`Some new stuff' is completely shaded in grey),
3. Hit the Delete key (located on the upper right of the main keyboard, with
the left arrow). The shaded text will disappear.
By combining the above features, moving about, adding and deleting text, one can change the text as desired. You will get more practice below.
Below you will a sections titled ``What is Mathematica?'' and ``Some Basic Elements of Mathematica'' as well as a subsection titled ``How to exit this tutorial'' which serve as a ``table of contents'' for the rest of this tutorial. These sections are ``closed up'' for convenience in finding the section of interest. For example, if you needed to get off the computer now, you would want to ``open up'' the sections ``How to exit this tutorial''. But, let's assume that you want to open the next section, ``What is Mathematica?'' To do this:
1. Put the cursor on the small rectangle to the right of the section title;
2. "double-click"---that is, make two short clicks of the mouse.
This (short) section should open up for you. Try it.
If you want to close up that section, double-click on the ] to the right, enclosing the entire section, including the title. Try it.
Notice the next section, ``Some basic elements of Mathematica'', has a larger rectangle following it; this is because it is a much larger section. Open this section up when you are ready to start learning Mathematica.
Mathematica is a state-of-the-art and remarkably powerful system for doing mathematics by computer. One can use Mathematica in many different ways, but in your the present course you will use only a small portion of its capabilities. (You will use more advanced features in your later course work and, very likely, in your professional career). The following tutorial sections will show you how to use to do numerical, symbolic and graphical calculations. You will get a sense of the graphical power in this tutorial.
One of the remarkable features of Mathematica is its `symbolic' capabiltity; i.e. its ability to very quickly do messy algrebraic computations and simplifications. Such packages can thus save us many tedious hours of (error-prone) work. Similarly, you will see later this term that Mathematica is also very good at calculus operations (differentiation and integration), and also can be used as a full fledged programming language.
These time saving features will not take all the work out of a scientific programming course, rather it will allows us to probe more deeply into central issues of the subject.
In addition, Mathematica comes with several ``front ends'' to the calculational kernel. These front ends are designed to make the use of Mathematica both easy and powerful. The notebook which you are currently reading is an example of such a ``front end''. Mathematica notebooks run on NeXT computers, X-windows workstations, Macintoshes, and IBM PCs and compatibles. The notebook allows you to intertwine graphics, sound, text, and Mathematica commands in one place. Later in the class we will be studying programming in the C and Fortran languages; although