Starting from first principles, this book covers all of the foundational material needed to develop a clear understanding of the Mathematica language, with a practical emphasis on solving problems. Concrete examples throughout the text demonstrate how Mathematica can be used to solve problems in science, engineering, economics/finance, computational linguistics, geoscience, bioinformatics, and a range of other fields. The book will appeal to students, researchers and programmers wishing to further their understanding of Mathematica. Designed to suit users of any ability, it assumes no formal knowledge of programming so it is ideal for self-study. Over 290 exercises are provided to challenge the reader's understanding of the material covered and these provide ample opportunity to practice using the language. Mathematica notebooks containing examples, programs and solutions to exercises are available from www.cambridge.org/wellin.

About the Authors

Paul R. Wellin directs the Wolfram Education Group at Wolfram Research, where he has worked since 1993. He has taught mathematics at both public school and at the university level for over 12 years. He has given talks, workshops, and seminars around the world on the integration of technical computing and education and has served on numerous government advisory panels on these issue. He is the author of several books on Mathematica.

Richard J. Gaylord is Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a Life member of Clare College at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge England. He has conducted research in theoretical polymer physics and on random walks, as well as in computer simulation modeling in the physical, chemical, biological, economic, and social sciences using Mathematica and is the author of numerous books on Mathematica.

Samuel N. Kamin is Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests are in the area of programming languages, compilers, and run-time code generation. He is the author of several books, including Programming Languages: An Interpreter-Based Approach (1990). More recently, he started an educational technology research group in his department, and has been exploring the development and uses of educational applications for the Tablet PC.