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Mathematica 1

This document provides instructions for a Mathematica homework assignment. It discusses downloading and installing Mathematica, creating notebooks and cells, performing basic arithmetic, defining constants and variables, incorporating units and uncertainties, working with lists and tables, adding comments, and turning in assignments. The document contains examples and exercises for students to practice the basics of the Mathematica programming language.

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Mahamad Ali
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90 views8 pages

Mathematica 1

This document provides instructions for a Mathematica homework assignment. It discusses downloading and installing Mathematica, creating notebooks and cells, performing basic arithmetic, defining constants and variables, incorporating units and uncertainties, working with lists and tables, adding comments, and turning in assignments. The document contains examples and exercises for students to practice the basics of the Mathematica programming language.

Uploaded by

Mahamad Ali
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ph3 Mathematica Homework:

Week 1
Eric D. Black
California Institute of Technology
v1.3

1 Obtaining, installing, and starting Mathe-


matica
Exercise 1: If you don’t already have Mathematica, download it and install
it onto your computer. Caltech has a site license, so as long as you are
a student here you don’t have to pay anything extra for it. Go to http:
//imss.caltech.edu/software, and log in using your IMSS username and
password. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, under the section titled
“Wolfram Research,” and select a version of Mathematica appropriate for
your computer. Follow the directions from there to download, install, and
validate your copy.
If you can’t (or don’t want to) install Mathematica on your own computer,
you can use the computers in the lab (four iMacs and one Windows machine).
Just be aware that you won’t always have access to the room, and plan your
work accordingly.
Mathematica documents are called Notebooks, and each notebook is or-
ganized into cells. Mathematica evaluates only what is in a given cell at any
one time. It does remember the results of all of the cells it has evaluated
during a session, but unlike a spreadsheet it does not update them all as soon
as one cell is edited.
Exercise 2: Start Mathematica. The program opens with either a new,
empty notebook or a dialog box asking you what you want to do. If you get
the dialog box, click on “New Document,” and a new notebook window will
appear. Type in the following simple math problem, and (making sure that

1
the cursor is still in the cell with your expression) hit either your Enter key,
which is usually part of your numeric keypad, or Shift-Return. This will tell
Mathematica to evaluate the expression you have just typed. (Just hitting
Return makes a new line inside the cell.)
2+2
You should see the answer appear below your input, as in the first cell of
Figure 1.

Figure 1: A few examples of arithmetic in Mathematica. The square brackets


on the right edge of the window delineate cells, and each cell has in input
and an output portion, also delineated by brackets with different forms.

I’ve included a few other basic calculations to demonstrate how things


work. Notice how Mathematica preserves the exact form of an expression

2
whenever possible, as opposed to evaluating it and giving you a numerical
approximation. You can force this evaluation using the N function, with the
thing you want to evaluate enclosed in square brackets.
Notice also that Mathematica has built-in fundamental constants, and
that they are represented with capital letters.
Pi = π ≈ 3.14159
√
I = i = −1

2 Constants and variables


It is a general convention that built-in (protected) symbols and functions in
Mathematica start with capital letters. You can define your own variables
and functions. Just be sure to use lower-case letters.
Exercise 3: Assign the following values to the variables a and b.
a = 22/7
b = Pi
and evaluate the fractional difference between them using
N[(a-b)/b]
The capital N[] is a function that says, “evaluate the expression inside the
square brackets, and give a numerical answer.” It is a built-in or reserved
function in Mathematica, which means it is already defined when you start
up the program, just like the constants Pi, E, and I. Mathematica has many
built-in functions, and their names are all more or less what you’d expect,
except that they all start with capital letters. Some examples are Sin[],
Log[], and Exp[], but there are many others. If you know or can guess
the name of a function, you can get help on its syntax with double question
marks.
You can define your own functions as well, just as you can define your
own constants and variables. Like constants and variables, you should use
lower-case names for your functions. We’ll talk more about functions and
how to define them in subsequent chapters.
Always use round parentheses () in your mathematical expressions. Square
brackets [] are reserved for enclosing the arguments of a function, and curly
brackets {} format lists, which we’ll talk about in a minute.

3
Figure 2: Double question marks followed by a function name gives you help
on that function.

Exercise 4: You can specify the number of significant figures N returns by


adding a comma and the number of sig-figs you √want inside the square brack-
ets. Evaluate the fractional difference between 10 and π to four significant
figures.
N[(Sqrt[10] - Pi)/Pi, 4]
Mathematica will happily evaluate an expression to any number of sig-
nificant figures. Try the following to get the answer to greater precision.
N[(Sqrt[10] - Pi)/Pi, 40]
N[(Sqrt[10] - Pi)/Pi, 400]
You don’t need to type all three lines out, though you may if you prefer. If
you want you can just edit the part of the cell you want to change, in this
case the precision, and then re-evaluate.

3 Units and uncertainties


3.1 Units
You can assign units to a quantity using the Quantity command. Syntax is

4
y = Quantity[8, "Meters"]
which produces y = 8 m, indicating that Mathematica understood what you
meant and is now using the abbreviation for the units you specified. You can
try typing in the abbreviation in the Quantity argument, and sometimes
Mathematica will get what you mean. Most units have the expected names,
and of course Mathematica will offer to auto-complete your typing so you
don’t have to memorize all of the specific unit names.
You can combine units in a logical manner, and Mathematica will under-
stand you.
v = Quantity[17, "Meters"/"Seconds"]
which will produce the output v = 17 m/s.

3.2 Uncertainties
Uncertainties can be incorporated into a number using Around. For example,
x = Around[5, 2]
will tell Mathematica that the value for x should be 5 ± 2.
You can combine the two to assign both units and uncertainties.
v0 = Quantity[Around[17, 2], "Meters"/"Seconds"]
which will produce an output of v0 = (17.0 ± 2.0) m/s.
I’m not going to give you any exercises here on this, but remember it. We
will use it next week, and of course you will find it very useful in analyzing
actual laboratory data.
There are many other things Around can do. You can use it to define
asymmetric error bars, for example, but you can also use it to calculate
the mean and uncertainty of a distribution or a list of numbers. All these
things are useful and interesting, but they are beyond the scope of this week’s
handout. You can look them up if you are interested.

4 Lists
Lists are collections of numbers, and they are the structure you are going to
work with the most when analyzing data. You can store them in variables

5
just as you would a constant, and you can name your variables pretty much
anything you want, as long as you stay away from capital letters.
Exercise 5: Define a list of the first five integers using the following syntax.

firstfive = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

You can call the value of one particular element of a list using double
square brackets. Type this in, and verify that it returns the fifth number in
the list.

firstfive[[5]]

You can put numbers directly into lists too. Replace the value of the
second number with π.

firstfive[[2]] = Pi

Type the name of the list into a new cell, and hit Enter to see all its
values.

firstfive

Lists can be two- or more-dimensional as well, in which case they take


the form

data = {{x1,y1}, {x2,y2}, {x3,y3}}

5 The Table command


One of the most useful commands you will learn for handling data is the
Table command. Its syntax goes like this, Table[expr, {i, min, max}],
where expr is some expression, and the index i goes from i=min to i=max.
To construct our list of the first five integers, for example, you could enter

firstfive = Table[i, {i, 1, 5}]

You can make tables of just about anything you can code for. To construct
a two-dimensional list of the first five integers (with perhaps the second one
replaced by π) and their squares, enter

squares = Table[{firstfive[[i]], firstfive[[i]]^2}, {i, 1, 5}]

6
Mathematica displays lists in bracketed form by default. If you want to
see a table in a more conventional layout, use the TableForm function.

TableForm[squares]

Exercise 6: Construct a two-dimensional list of the first ten integers and


their square roots. Calculate their numerical values to three significant fig-
ures, and display them as a table.

6 Comments
There are two ways to add comments to a Mathematica notebook, by lines
or by cells. To add a comment line inside an executable cell, enclose the
comment in parentheses and asterisks, (* like this *). To create a text-
only cell, create an empty cell, and with the cursor in the cell hold down
the Command key, type the number seven (<Cmd> 7). You can also set the
format of a cell using the Format -> Style pull-down menu.

7 Turning in your work


Print a copy of your notebook, write your name, section number, and the
date on it, and hand it in to the Mathematica TA when you come to class.
You can use a comment cell for your name and section information if you
like, but handwritten is ok too.
You should either bring your computer to class or, if you’d rather use the
lab computers, make sure you have access to your Mathematica notebook on
a thumb drive or server in case you need to correct anything.

7
8 Reference
1. Evaluating a cell - Place the cursor inside the cell you want to evaluate
and hit “Enter” or “Shift-Return.”

2. Evaluating multiple cells - Select the cell (or cells) you want evaluated,
pull down the “Evaluation” menu, and select “Evaluate Cells ...”

3. Evaluating the entire notebook - Pull down the “Evaluation” menu,


and choose “Evaluate Notebook.”

4. Capital letters - Reserved symbols and function names usually begin


with capital letters. Stick with lower-case letters when you are naming
your own variables and functions.

5. Parentheses - The different types of parentheses have different mean-


ings.

• Round brackets, or standard parentheses () are used in formatting


mathematical expressions. Use only these when entering mathe-
matical expressions.
• Square brackets [] are used for the arguments of functions e.g.
N[22/7], or as formatting to show the boundaries of cells.
• Curly brackets {} are used in lists.
• Double square brackets [[]] are used to address specific elements
of a list, e.g. q[[i,j]].

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