Re: Book?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg110503] Re: Book?
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
- Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:12:38 -0400 (EDT)
Before you even consider getting some book, I urge you to point your browser to the Learning Center... http://www.wolfram.com/learningcenter/ (1) View some of the introductory video screencasts (you'll want sound!). In the Learning Center, click the top item, "Looking to get started? Watch a video screencast". On the Screencast & Video Gallery page, go to Tutorials > Getting Started. I recommend Cliff Hastings' "Hands-on Start to Mathematica-Part 1" and Jeff Todd's much longer "An Introduction to Mathematica". You can certainly profit from watching these before your Mathematica arrives, but they are good to review, too, with a copy of Mathematica installed. (2) Perhaps browse in the free PDF tutorial files (which are just print-formatted versions of what's included in the Documentation Center you get with Mathematica). In the Learning Center, these are in the section "Want more detailed information? Read one of our tutorials." (3) Once you have your copy of Mathematica, open the Documentation Center from the main menu Help and then in its menu click the icon that looks like a book in order to view documentation in an organized "Virtual Book". You'll see a separate window with a table of contents listing virtual chapters. You can expand each such chapter to show its sections. This virtual book can provide a framework for learning. Sooner or later, you'll doubtless want to use the Documentation Center proper, jumping around among tutorials, how-tos, individual function reference pages, etc. On 6/20/2010 3:46 AM, Olive wrote: > I am new to mathematica and I am looking at a book to learn > mathematica (in fact I have not yet mathematica but I am considering > purchasing a home license). I would say no more than 300-400 pages that > explain how the system works, basic of programming etc... Any thought? > > Olive > > > -- Murray Eisenberg murrayeisenberg at gmail.com 80 Fearing Street phone 413 549-1020 (H) Amherst, MA 01002-1912