The Mathematica ® Primer

This book is a short, focused introduction to Mathematica, the comprehensive software system for doing mathematics. Written for the novice, this engaging book contains an explanation of essential Mathematica commands, as well as the rich Mathematica interface for preparing polished technical documents. Mathematica can be used to graph functions, solve equations, perform statistics tests, and much more. In addition, it incorporates word processing and desktop publishing features for combining mathematical computations with text and graphics, and producing polished, integrated, interactive documents. You can even use it to create documents and graphics for the Web. This book explains everything you need to know to begin using Mathematica to do all these things and more. Written for Mathematica version 3, this book can also be used with earlier versions of the software. Intermediate and advanced users may even find useful information here, especially if they are making the switch to version 3 from an earlier version.

• This book describes not only Mathematica commands, but also the user interface for Windows 95, Macintosh and Unix platforms
• This book is based on the authors' collective experience teaching Mathematica-based courses over the last five years
• Mathematica is an incredibly rich and complicated software system; this book focuses on the essentials, without getting sidetracked by the fine points