104k views

### What are the most common pitfalls awaiting new users?

As you may already know, Mathematica is a wonderful piece of software. However, it has a few characteristics that tend to confuse new (and sometimes not-so-new) users. That can be clearly seen from ...
150 views

### What is the point of tagset /:? [duplicate]

I'm teaching myself Mathematica and came across tagset. So I followed the example in the link, but seem to be missing the point. All of the below give me the same answer after assignment: that ...
78 views

### How does Wolfram Language implement for enabling symbols to receive various forms of parameters? [duplicate]

How does the official implement a list/tuple of parameters that can be different in type and quantity as a whole? After re-read @Szabolcs's and @MichaelE2's comments. Finally, I accepted the ...
73 views

### Understanding TagSetDelayed

I was reading What is the distinction between DownValues, UpValues, SubValues, and OwnValues? and I started to be confused with the part "Upvalues" of the first answer. Some of my confusion comes ...
63 views

### What is exactly an element a[i] in mathematica? [duplicate]

I'm confused about the logic behind mathematica programming. We can have function that will be called doing $f[x]$, thus the element $f[x]$ can be seen as the return value of a function taking an ...
199 views

### Scope of dummy variables used in defining a function

I define a function and then define another function, using the same name for the dummy variables as I used for the first function. Will Mathematica use the first definition in the second definition? ...
214 views

### What makes a pattern more general?

This is a rewording of the question. The original post is below. How come that a pattern for an expression with a specific head is not more specific than a pattern for an expression with a generic ...
210 views

### Get imaginary part of symbolic expression [duplicate]

I define ψ1 = Sqrt[Subscript[ρ, 1][t]] E^(I Subscript[θ, 1][t]); ψ2 = Sqrt[Subscript[ρ, 2][t]] E^(I Subscript[θ, 2][t]); and ...
46 views

### Multiple Square Bracketed Function definition

I am familiar with the typical way of defining a function--such as f[x_,y_]:=x+y but I have not found a discussion of definitions such as ...
2k views

### Solve a nonlinear PDE equation with a Neumann boundary condition

I am trying to use Mathematica 10 to solve a PDE $$u_t=u_{xx}+u_{yy}+u(1-u),$$ in the unit disk $(x,y) \in D=\{(x,y):x^2+y^2<1\}$, with the Neumann boundary condtion \frac{\partial u}{\partial n}...
137k views

### Where can I find examples of good Mathematica programming practice?

I consider myself a pretty good Mathematica programmer, but I'm always looking out for ways to either improve my way of doing things in Mathematica, or to see if there's something nifty that I haven't ...
7k views

### Can one identify the design patterns of Mathematica?

... or are they unnecessary in such a high-level language? I've been thinking about programming style, coding standards and the like quite a bit lately, the result of my current work on a mixed .Net/...
327 views

### Why is D[a[b][c],a[b]] equal to 1[c]?

Background: I had the same issue as described here, and I went to extend Mr.Wizard’s code such that a[b][c] would be shown as $a_b^c$. Issue: To my surprise, ...
344 views

### VectorPlot3D of the Electric Field E as Determined from the Potential V

I am new to Mathematica and I am trying to create the electric field $F$ from the electric potential $V$ (using arbitrary distances) and then plot the subsequent vector graph to show that the electric ...
62 views

### How do we input powers of indexed variables?

I have tried (a[i])^2 and alternatively (a^2)[i] Apparently both seem to work, but I was wondering what was the right way ...

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