Mathematica Basics

Description

Setup

In order to get the full benefit of the graphic power of Mathematica, it should be invoked under the X Window System on X terminals or workstations. To do this, you must first set your DISPLAY environment variable to allow you to run this X Application and allow it to display graphics on your local machine/terminal. You may also want to set the environment variable TERM to be xterm. Most PC based X servers such as XWin32 will do this for you automatically.

Mathematica uses it's own set of fonts and you may need to copy them over to your workstation in order to have the graphical application display correctly on your machine. Please see the following FAQ on this.

To invoke Mathematica, type: mathematica at the shell prompt.

However, if you do not have access to a xterm, you can still use it via a command-line environment. In this case, type math at the shell prompt to activate the package.

Using Mathematica

Running Mathematica Under the Batch System:

1) Create an input file that contains mathematica
   input/instructions such as the following:    
   
twister% more inputfile  
AppendTo[$Echo, "stdout"]  
a = 2  
b = 4  
c = a + b  
Quit    

2) To run in the background at the monitor:  
twister% math < inputfile > outputfile&    

where "outputfile" is the name of the output file    

twister% cat outputfile  
Mathematica 5.2 for IBM AIX Power (64 bit)  
Copyright 1988-2005 Wolfram Research, Inc.  
 -- Motif graphics initialized --     
 
 In[1]:=   
 Out[1]= {stdout}    
 
 In[2]:= a = 2    
 
 Out[2]= 2    
 
 In[3]:= b = 4    
 
 Out[3]= 4    
 
 In[4]:= c = a + b    
 
 Out[4]= 6    
 
 In[5]:= Quit    
 
 3) To run the same job in batch queue, say, p4-long on AIX
 
 twister% bsub -q p4-long "math < inputfile > outputfile" 
 
 Note: DO NOT include "&" in the batch mode.

Frequently Asked Questions

Additional Help/Documentation

Mathematica has online documentation available here. There is also a set of basic tutorials available on the Wolfram web site to help you get started, with lots of examples.

What hardcopy documentation we have is available in the Computer Graphics Lab (Room 203, 111 Cummington Street, lab hours and access). This includes the book Mathematica, A System for Doing Mathematics by Computer, Third Edition, by Stephen Wolfram.

For more information on Mathematica, visit Wolfram Research's Mathematica web site