In this section we will summarize the new Mathematica commands that you've
encountered in this lesson, and point you to further reading in the Mathematica handbook.
Solve allows you to symbolically solve an equation for an unknown. You
must specify the equation and the unknown. Actually, Solve is more
general than we have let on, as you can solve more than one equation for more
than one unknown. For further information on Solve, see the Mathematica handbook.
Nsolve works much like Solve, but it finds numerical
solutions to equations. You can learn more about NSolve in
the Mathematica book as well, or use the on-line documentation.
``Unassignment'', such as
a=.
refers to using assignment to remove the value that has
been assigned to a variable.
Function definitions are used to add user-defined functions to Mathematica's
repertoire. They are created as noted above, and can take any number of variables.
Simplify allows you to simplify expressions in various ways.
There are other, more specialized, simplification commands as well,
and we will come to them in time.
Series will give you the Taylor series expansion of a function.
Limit will calculate the limit of a function.