SCIENCE AND VISUALIZATION

Coming This Fall to an ACF Server Near You: Mathematica 3.0

Howard Fink

Mathematica is a system for doing mathematical computation. It was originally released in 1988 and Version 2 came in 1991. The program is in two parts, a front end on the user's computer, where expressions are entered and results are displayed, and a kernel, which can run on the user's computer or a more powerful central computer, where the calculations take place. The front end shows a notebook that looks the same on all computers. The full text of the Mathematica Book, a 1400-page reference manual, will be available in notebook form online.

The most notable new feature is the support of standard mathematical notation for input and output. An expression such as

can be entered from the keyboard or by selecting from palettes. Palettes for mathematical operations and 700 special characters are built-in, as well as international character sets and Unicode. Buttons can be user-defined, and commands can operate on selected portions of an expression. The notebook interface is now fully programmable, "so that anything you can do interactively to a notebook in the front end you can also do by sending appropriate commands to the front end from the kernel."

Mathematica has been used at many NYU departments: Economics, Medicine, Chemistry, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Music Technology.

Posted 26 September 1996; revised 23 October 1996