M100: An Introduction to Mathematica

Course Objective This course is designed to provide a direct training experience with many of the basic features of Mathematica.

Presenter The course is presented by a Wolfram Education Group certified instructor.

Target Audience The course is an ideal choice for users who have recently upgraded to Mathematica 8 and anyone who would like to become a proficient Mathematica user. This course is helpful to people with little Mathematica experience as well as to experienced users who would like to broaden their basic understanding of the system.

Delivery Type Courses are delivered as instructor-led classes in computer classroom facilities or as online classes over the web. Events at BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop) locations require attendees to bring their own computers to class. (Don't forget your computer battery and charger!) Course topics are presented with alternating sessions of lectures and exercises. All classes feature low student-teacher ratios. This course is also available in French.

Syllabus The course is organized into six segments. Topics will be selected at the discretion of the instructor, and, depending on time constraints, not all topics may be covered.

Introduction
Step-by-step instruction on performing basic operations, building up computations, and navigating the user interface, as well as a description of how to navigate and take full advantage of the documentation system
Programming I
Introduction to the Mathematica programming language, with emphasis on familiar programming tasks involving procedural, functional, and rule-based styles of programming
Visualization and Graphics
Two- and three-dimensional plotting, plotting data, using options, and creating dynamic and interactive graphics
Working with Notebooks
Introduction to the notebook interface, cells and cell styles, stylesheets, mathematical formulas, hyperlinks and buttons, and slide shows
Symbolic Computation
Computation with symbolic expressions, including polynomial operations, solving equations, functions from calculus, and simplification
Numerical Computation
Fitting data, interpolation, integration, solving equations, displaying intermediate values, differential equations, linear systems, exact versus inexact numbers, arbitrary-precision numbers, and working with large arrays

Course Materials Each attendee will be provided with Mathematica course notebooks and access to the current version of Mathematica. The course notebooks require Mathematica or Wolfram CDF Player. For attendees participating in classroom-based sessions, course materials are distributed in print and on CD-ROM, and are yours to keep; a computer running Mathematica is available for your use during class. For attendees participating in online classes, a download of the course materials is provided; a temporary Mathematica training license is provided upon request. For attendees of free events, course materials will be provided at the discretion of the instructor.

Prerequisites Course attendees are expected to have experience with common features of modern computer software. Also helpful are knowledge of mathematics through elementary calculus and experience with computer programming at the level of an introductory course in any computer programming language. No prior Mathematica experience is required for this course.

This course is available for onsite training. For more information on bringing this course to your institution, see the onsite training page.