Top Mathematica Tips
elishapeterson 1221071955|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
Here are some Mathematica tips… reply with your own, or email me, and I'll award some bonus points!
The Three Most Common Errors
- Did you use square brackets for functions?
- Did you capitalize function names?
- Example: use "Cos[t]", not "cos[t]" or "Cos(t)" or "Cos t"
- If its blue, Mathematica will treat it as a variable
- Do you have spaces or "*" whenever you multiply two variables?
- Example: "xy" is the variable named "xy" whereas "x y" and "x*y" represent the product of "x" and "y".
Brackets, Braces, etc.
- Use parentheses for order of operations, e.g. "(1+x)^2"
- Use square brackets for functions, e.g. "Plot3D[ ]" or "Sin[t]"
- Use curly braces for vectors, e.g. "{3,4,5}" represents the vector
- Use curly braces for lists also, e.g. defining plot parameters as "{t,-5,5}"
Section Titles and Cell Formatting
Use formatting commands to add in section headings, problem statements, and notes to your workbooks. The easiest way to do this is to highlight a cell (click on the bracket on the righthand side of the window) and then hit Alt+1, Alt+2, etc. I cycle through these until I find what I want.
xf[1,2]". This doesn't work! Mathematica evaluates "f[1,2]" first and then takes the derivative, so the value is ALWAYS 0. Instead, type "
