Mathematica stores information in a kind of document called a “notebook”.
The document you are now reading is itself a Mathematica notebook. You can read notebooks with MathReader, the Mathematica notebook reader.
Mathematica notebooks are usually divided into sections. When you first open a notebook, you are usually shown only the headings for the sections. MathReader allows you to “open up” the sections to see the material inside them. To do this, simply double-click the angled bracket, as shown here:
The rest of this notebook tells you more about notebooks and how to use MathReader. To read the other sections of this notebook, open them by double-clicking their brackets.
Notebooks are a form of interactive document supported by Mathematica.
A notebook contains text, graphics and sound, together with Mathematica input and output. Notebooks can also include “movies”: animated graphics created by Mathematica or imported from other programs.
To use a typical notebook, you read the text, look at the graphics (still or animated), play the sounds, and execute the Mathematica input.
MathReader is a Macintosh program that allows you to look at and print Mathematica notebooks. With MathReader, you can read the text, view the graphics and movies, and play the sounds in any notebook produced by Mathematica on a Macintosh or NeXT Computer.
MathReader does not, however, allow you to create or edit notebooks, nor does it allow you to execute Mathematica input. To do these things you need a full copy of Mathematica. Information on how to get one is given in the section below entitled “Buying Mathematica ”.
An important advantage of MathReader is that it is a relatively small program, which runs on computers that do not have enough memory to run Mathematica..
You may give away copies of MathReader. Please see the section “Distributing MathReader” for information on distribution policies.
A Mathematica notebook consists of a sequence of “cells”, each of which can contain text, graphics, or Mathematica input or output. The extent of a cell is indicated by a bracket (shown in blue on color systems) on the right-hand side of the window.
The cells in a notebook are usually arranged in groups, which are analogous to the sections and chapters of a printed document. The first cell of a group customarily contains a heading for the section of the notebook represented by that group.
The grouping is indicated by additional brackets on the right-hand side of the window; the bracket for a group encloses the brackets of the cells in that group. Sophisticated notebooks often contain several levels of hierarchical organization, indicated by several levels of brackets.
A group of cells may be open or closed. When a group is open, all the cells in the group are displayed, but when it is closed only the first cell, which contains the group heading, is visible. The presence of the remaining cells is indicated by a horizontal rectangle just inside the heading cell's bracket; the rectangle's width is proportional to the number of cells in the group. In addition, the bracket of a closed group is angled at the bottom.
Highly-structured Mathematica notebooks are usually stored with all groups closed. When you open such a notebook, you see just its group heading cells, which form an outline of the contents of the notebook.
You can open a closed group of cells by double-clicking the group's enclosing bracket (the one with an angle at the bottom). When you have a group of cells open, you can close it again by double-clicking the bracket that spans the group.
Another way to open or close a group of cells is to select the group (by clicking its bracket) and then choose the Closed Group command in the Cells menu (the Command-key equivalent is '). This command will open a closed group and close an open group. If you want to open or close a group and all its subgroups at once, choose the Open All Subgroups or Close All Subgroups command, also in the Cells menu.
MathReader allows you to view “movies” generated by Mathematica. A movie is a sequence of frames displayed in quick succession. Each frame in a Mathematica movie is a graphics cell; a movie is a group of graphics cells.
There are two steps in viewing a movie: you select the movie you wish to see (a single notebook may contain several), and you give the command to begin the animation.
To view a movie, you must first select it by clicking (once) the bracket that spans the group containing the frames of the movie.
Often the movie group will be closed, so that only the first frame is visible. In this case the group's bracket has an angle at the bottom. Simply click this bracket; you do not have to open the group to be able to see the movie.
You should be sure to click the correct bracket. Clicking the innermost bracket would select only a single frame, and clicking a bracket too far to the right might select several movies at once. Neither of these would produce the desired animation effect.
Once you have selected the group of cells that make up the movie, you can start the movie by double-clicking the first picture in the group. (As an alternative, you can choose the Animate Selected Graphics command in the Graph menu.) You can stop the movie by clicking anywhere inside the window.
Mathematica shows a movie in the cell which contains the movie's first frame. Movies in notebooks are often stored as closed groups, so that only this first cell is visible.
You can control the speed and direction of a Mathematica movie as it runs by clicking the palette of buttons that will appear in the lower left corner of the window. The first three buttons control the direction of the animation: Backward, Back and Forth, and Forward. The middle button is a pause button, and the last two buttons control the speed: Slower and Faster.
There are two versions of Mathematica for Macintosh computers:
• Standard Version
• Enhanced Version
The Standard Version does not require floating-point hardware; it will run on any Macintosh which has sufficient RAM and disk space. The Enhanced Version, which is optimized to do floating-point operations more quickly, requires a 68020 or higher CPU and takes advantage of a numeric coprocessor, when present. The Enhanced Version also includes a separate binary for use without a numeric coprocessor.
Note: 5MB memory partition required. Mathematica may use virtual memory, available under System 7.
Mathematica consists of two parts: a kernel, which does computations, and a front end, which handles interaction with the user. You can run these two parts on separate computers. For example, you can have the front end on a Macintosh, with the kernel running on a remote computer server. The front end for the Macintosh is available as a separate product, for use with remote kernels purchased separately.
• Macintosh Front End
1.5MB partition required. Supports TCP/IP and Communications Toolbox.
Note: MathReader is not a front end for Mathematica.
• Additional 16 megabytes hard disk space recommended for virtual memory
• MS-DOS version 3.0 or higher (version 5.0 or higher for the 9801RAS)
• Normal or high resolution display
• Numeric coprocessor (optional)
Supported printers:
• NEC PR series
• Epson P-code
• HP LaserJet Series II and compatibles
• IBM Proprinter and compatibles
• IBM Quickwriter 5204 series and compatibles
• PostScript
• Epson FX/LQ
• Toshiba P3 printers.
Mathematica for the NEC PC provides DOS-style editing abilities, but does not support Mathematica notebooks.
Mathematica for the NEC PC includes Japanese language versions of Mathematica: A System for Doing Mathematics by Computer and Mathematica User's Guide.
A Mathematica Educational Grant Program is offered to educational institutions that want to improve the quality of their instruction through the use of Mathematica in the classroom and teaching laboratory. The program is designed to help your school establish a teaching laboratory based on the Mathematica system.
For information about the Educational Grant Program and Academic Site License Programs, contact the Wolfram Research Sales Department at 1-800-441-MATH or email info@wri.com.
In Europe, contact Wolfram Research Europe Ltd., +44-(0)993-883400
The main documentation for Mathematica Version 2 is the book Mathematica : A System for Doing Mathematics by Computer, Second Edition, by Stephen Wolfram, published by Addison-Wesley (1991). The book is available at most bookstores.
Softcover version (ISBN 0-201-51507-5)
Hardcover version (ISBN 0-201-51502-4)
German version (ISBN 3-89319-371-5)
Japanese version (ISBN 4-7952-9614-6)
To order the book directly, call Addison-Wesley at
Mathematica in Education is published quarterly by TELOS/Springer-Verlag. It is devoted to topics related to the use of Mathematica to enhance education. For information about Mathematica in Education, contact:
R. Maeder: Informatik für Mathematiker und Naturwissenschaftler: Eine Einführung mit Mathematica, ISBN 3-89319-519-X (Addison-Wesley, 1993) (in German).
Wolfram Research gives you permission to give away as many free copies of MathReader as you like, but you may not sell it, and you may not package it with other software that you do sell. And you must include this file (Read This First!) with any copy of MathReader you make.
If you give someone a copy of MathReader on a disk, then you may charge a fair price for the disk itself, and for such costs as duplication and inventory — this price should never exceed $5 per disk — but you must not charge for MathReader . (If you obtained a Demonstration Notebooks Disk, which contains MathReader , directly from Wolfram Research, you probably paid such a fee.)
Here is an example: a Mathematica User Group might keep a collection of notebooks in its library. For a fee, a member of the User Group may obtain a copy of a notebook on disk. The User Group may distribute MathReader on the same disks provided that the fee is not higher than what would cover its cost to produce and distribute the disks. If a higher fee is charged, perhaps to reimburse the author of the notebook or to fund the User Group's activities, then MathReader must not be included on these disks (but it may be distributed by itself on other disks for which a lower fee is charged).
Another example: many schools, colleges, and universities have instructional computing labs where students have access to Macintosh computers. A teacher who has Mathematica might create course notes in the form of notebooks, intending students to use the school's computers to read the notes. If the teacher does not charge for course notes, the teacher may give the students disks containing MathReader and the course notes (the teacher may still charge for the cost of the disks). If the teacher wants to charge for the course notes, she or he must distribute MathReader separately — perhaps just placing a copy in the computer lab, where the students may copy it onto their own disks for free.
