Computing with Mathematica (Spiral-bound)

by Hartmut F.W. Hoft (Author), Margret H. Hoft (Author) "This is a short introduction of the basic features of Mathematica..." (more)
Key Phrases: cell dingbats, next input cell, single input cell, Option Inspector, New York, John Wiley (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
Solve technical problems arising in fhe fields of mathematics, science, engineering, and computer science with this interactive learning tool. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
Computing With Mathematica is a student-friendly courseware which equips students with the necessary tools to use Mathematica to solve problems in their engineering, physics, statistics, mathematics, or computer science courses. As a tutorial, students will benefit from learning on their own how to use Mathematica for problem-solving in technical fields.
The authors have designed an accessible interactive text which consists of 12 electronic Mathematica notebooks for computation and visualization. This learning program is ideal for introducing students to computing with Mathematica and for investigating topics.

* Interactive, Mathematica-based text, electronic as well as printed version included
* Examples, challenging exercises, and interactive explorations from a variety of disciplines
* Wide variety of interesting and worth-while mathematical applications
* Integration of student projects as an essential component of the course; collection of student projects included
* Interactive text allows user to change examples and avenues of exploration

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 290 pages
• Publisher: Academic Press; Bk&CD-Rom edition (August 27, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0123516609
• ISBN-13: 978-0123516602
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,447,364 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Problems for Students to Work On, January 23, 2004

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Computing with Mathematica, Second Edition (Paperback)

Mathematica has become a common part of many undergraduates' toolkits, for those majoring in engineering or the physical sciences. Many undergraduate courses also use it, by assigning problems that explicity require running it to obtain answers. Certainly, its ability to perform symbolic algebra is excellent.

Given all this, the authors have produced a worthy book that meets a real need amongst some students for an explanatory text. In some ways, perhaps the most useful thing is the ample number of problems, that for a given topic, scale from simple to hard. Possibly the best way for the reader to assimilate the ideas and to be able to manipulate Mathematica facilely.

The book does not offer a comprehensive description of all the features of Mathematica. Which may be for the best, in terms of avoiding information overload on the student. Rather, it is seen as the place to defer to the official Mathematica online and hardcopy documentation.

3.0 out of 5 stars You'll learn Mathematica, but..., February 13, 2005

By	anonymous - See all my reviews

This review is from: Computing with Mathematica, Second Edition (Paperback)

I'm using this text for a Mathematica course at an undergraduate level. Several of my previous math (calculus and beyond calculus) courses had me using Mathematica, but not really understanding what I was doing. This book has helped quite a bit.

The problems I have, however, is the exercises. A few times I've run into exercises that are of the form "(1) Do all these long, tedious steps; (2) Undo half of what you did, and redo it in a different way; (3) Write a paragraph explaining what you did and what you learned." It seems like these could have been streamlined just a bit.

This book claims to be suited for students with a background consisting of the basic calculus sequence and linear algebra (in other words, engineering math). Some of the problems are similar to what someone will see in a number theory course, advanced calculus or maybe even numerical analysis or discrete mathematics. None of these subjects are particularly terrible, but one can spend an hour or so trying to get a handle on the math behind the problem (speaking from experience), and then another hour trying to figure out how to get Mathematica do do what is asked. Being a math major, I welcome this, but it seems like a rather poor and inefficient way to teach someone with less of a background in math how to use Mathematica.

My final gripe is the wording of the problems. The instructions aren't always that instructive, and the goal you're asked to attain is sometimes a little too vague.

Ultimately, expect to learn how to use Mathematica through this book (which is the point of the text), but also expect to be VERY fursterated at times trying to figure out what the problem is asking or the mathematics behind it.