An Introduction To Mathematica

We’re not attempting an exhaustive survey of Mathematica’s capabilities: we couldn’t come close to doing justice to that task in the time we have. Equally, there are dozens of specialised uses for Mathematica (in pure and applied mathematics, physical science, engineering etc.) that we can’t hope to address here (though some are touched on in our “Case Studies”: see below). Instead, we focus on the key elements of the Mathematica system and how the system is used.
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These course notes are not intended as a substitute for the manual, which is The Mathematica Book (Cambridge University Press, Third Edition, 1996), by Stephen Wolfram. The entire contents of the manual, and more, are available on Mathematica's extensive online Help system, which you should certainly take time to explore.
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In addition to these course notes we have prepared some Case Studies, or “common tasks in Mathematica for the academic user”. These are an attempt to address just a few of the more specialised roles in which Mathematica is used.