Mark McClure

13,806 reputation

2563

bio	website	facstaff.unca.edu/mcmcclur
	location	Asheville, NC
	age
visits	member for	1 year, 4 months
	seen	11 mins ago
stats	profile views	1,164

I've been a professor of mathematics at The University of North Carolina - Asheville since 1997. I've been using Mathematica since I started graduate school in mathematics at Ohio State in 1989. At that time, we used version 1.1 (as I recall) to teach calculus in our Calculus and Mathematica classes. I've used it pretty much continuously in my teaching and research since then.

In addition to my posts on SE, you can find some of my papers, teaching notebooks and other Mathematica based oddities strewn throughout my website.

In recent years, I've also worked as a part-time consultant to Wolfram Research focusing on development of mathematical content for WolframAlpha.

	13,806 reputation	bio	website	facstaff.unca.edu/mcmcclur	visits	member for	1 year, 4 months
2563 badges		location	Asheville, NC		seen	11 mins ago

summary answers questions tags badges favorites bounties reputation activity

752 Actions

suggestions reviews revisions comments badges posts accepts all

Oct 22	comment	Why doesn't Mathematica solve $x=\cos\,x$ properly? @Mr.Wizard The 0.739... in the argument is not used to compute the value of the root, only to isolate it from any other potential roots. In this sense, it is similar to the index for normal polynomial `Root` objects, as returned by say, Solve[x^5 -x-1 == 0, x]. Of course, the root can be computed to arbitrary precision using the `-Cos[#1] + #1 &`.
Oct 19	comment	Mathematica code for Bifurcation Diagram @J.M. Having looked into this further, I stand by my assertion that Stan's code is not ready to accept a cubic with parameter. I quite literally sat down with him, opened up the notebook file that forms that chapter in his book, and tried it. Boom.
Oct 19	comment	Mathematica code for Bifurcation Diagram @J.M. Ahh, I'm thinking third edition. Again, I'll check in a bit.
Oct 19	comment	Mathematica code for Bifurcation Diagram @J.M. I don't have the text handy but I actually collaborated with Stan on that chapter and related material, although I'm only credited in the complex dynamics chapter. I don't recall the text dealing with multiple critical points, which it must do to work as advertised. I certainly could be mistaken, though, and will look at a copy a bit later today.
Oct 19	revised	Mathematica code for Bifurcation Diagram added 97 characters in body
Oct 19	comment	Mathematica code for Bifurcation Diagram @VitaliyKaurov 3:30 AM?
Oct 19	answered	Mathematica code for Bifurcation Diagram
Oct 16	comment	How to generate random directed connected graph? @whuber See edit. I did this quite some time ago and, unfortunately, the technique is not wholly within mathematica. It relies on a weighted spanning tree algorithm which, as far as I know, is not implemented in Mathematica. There is a `SpanningTree` command in the `SparseArray` context, but I'm not clear on how it works.
Oct 16	revised	How to generate random directed connected graph? added 248 characters in body
Oct 16	comment	How to generate random directed connected graph? @whuber Now that this question has become popular, I added an answer which should lead to interesting graphs. I guess that yet another approach would be to grab the largest connected component of a randomly generated graph. I still have no clue what the OP was really after, though.
Oct 16	comment	How to generate random directed connected graph? @DanielLichtblau The US Forest service was born in Asheville; we've cut down far too many trees!
Oct 16	answered	How to generate random directed connected graph?
Oct 15	answered	Why is NDSolve solving in term of two 1st order ODE slower than 2nd order?
Oct 12	comment	How to generate random directed connected graph? @whuber Having published several papers on the growth of trees in random constructions, I'm well aware of the nature of random graphs, thank you. I'm simply suggesting the basis of a strategy for dealing with sparse graphs. If my comment (not answer) seems to lack detail, perhaps that's because the question lacks detail.
Oct 12	comment	How to generate random directed connected graph? @whuber I didn't see anything in the question about a particular distribution.
Oct 12	comment	How to generate random directed connected graph? Alternatively to @whuber's approach, you could place random connections between the connected components. Might be useful, if you want a relatively sparse graph.
Oct 12	comment	Randomly packing spheres of fixed radius within a cube How many spheres?
Oct 11	answered	NDSolve with Euler method
Oct 10	comment	Data interpolation and ListContourPlot @RahulNarain I mean that, looking at the picture, it seems that there are details that might not be totally justifiable from the data. That certainly doesn't nullify the approach or make it wrong. I upvoted it and, as I indicated in my answer, I think that your approach is quite impressive indeed! It's more global and easily automatable than mine. As such, I see the two approaches as complementary.
Oct 10	revised	Data interpolation and ListContourPlot added 952 characters in body