# All Questions

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### 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 ...
142k 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 ...
15k views

### How do I work with Root objects?

I want to solve the trigonometric equation : $$(3-\cos 4x )\cdot (\sin x - \cos x ) = 2.$$ I tried Solve[(3 - Cos[4*x])*(Sin[x] - Cos[x]) == 2, x] It returns the ...
14k views

### Plot draws list of curves in same color when not using Evaluate

This example comes from the Mathematica documentation for Plot under Basic Examples. Can someone please explain why these are each plotted as a different color in ...
15k views

### What are the use cases for different scoping constructs?

Mathematica includes three functions that I know of which can be used to effectively (if not actually) define a variable and give it a value within a local scope: ...
44k views

### Alternatives to procedural loops and iterating over lists in Mathematica

While there are some cases where a For loop might be reasonable, it's a general mantra – one I subscribe to myself – that "if you are using a ...
19k views

### List of compilable functions

Is there somewhere a list on the functions that Compile can compile, or the cases in which a particular function can be compiled that I haven't found? I'd be glad ...
7k views

### What is a Mathematica packed array?

A simple sounding question with a few sub questions: What is the difference between unpacked vs packed array? Are packed arrays more space efficent, how much so? Are packed arrays more time ...
65k views

### Elegant operations on matrix rows and columns

Question The Mathematica tutorial has a section 'Basic Matrix Operations', describing operations like transpose, inverse and determinant. These operations all work on entire matrices. I am missing a ...
10k views

### Why does MatrixForm affect calculations?

This is a really newbie question, but it has me confused. Why does this code work without // MatrixForm and doesn't work with ...
14k views

### What are some useful, undocumented Mathematica functions?

There have already been some questions about some undocumented functionality in Mathematica. Such as (please add to these lists!) How can one find undocumented options or option values in Mathematica?...
12k views

### What does the construct f[x_] := f[x] = … mean?

This question mentions "x := x = trickery". What does defining a function as f[x_] := f[x] = ... do and what is it good for?
17k views

### Why should I avoid the For loop in Mathematica?

Some people advise against the use of For loops in Mathematica. Why? Should I heed this advice? What is wrong with For? What ...
12k views

### What is the distinction between DownValues, UpValues, SubValues, and OwnValues?

When reading through the documentation, you often encounter the phrases DownValues, UpValues, ...
6k views

### What is the most convenient way to read definitions of in-memory symbols when we don't have the source files? (Spelunking tools)

Note: I put Simon's implementation on GitHub. Contributions welcome! When trying to read the definition of already defined (package or built-in) symbols using ...
11k views

### About multi-root search in Mathematica for transcendental equations

I have some questions for multiroot search for transcendental equations. Is there any clever solution to find all the roots for a transcendental equation in a specific range? Perhaps ...
2k views

### Enforcing correct variable bindings and avoiding renamings for conflicting variables in nested scoping constructs

Using global variables the following turns an "expression" into a Function: expr = 2 x; Function[x, Evaluate[expr]] Of course ...
4k views

### How are parameters evaluated for a Plot in Manipulate

I am trying to get my head around how Manipulate evaluates functions in a Plot. I have read the introduction to Manipulate, and introduction to Dynamic, but I still ...
86k views

### Assign the results from a Solve to variable(s)

I understand Mathematica can't assign the results of a Solve to the unknowns because there may be more than 1 solution. How can I assign the 4 values of following result to variables? ...
5k views

### Dynamic Euler–Bernoulli beam equation

I am trying to solve for the vibration of a Euler–Bernoulli beam. The equation is $\frac{\partial ^2u(t,x)}{\partial t^2}+\frac{\partial ^4u(t,x)}{\partial x^4}=0$ For the boundary conditions I ...
5k views

### Replacement inside held expression

I wish to make a replacement inside a held expression: f[x_Real] := x^2; Hold[{2., 3.}] /. n_Real :> f[n] The desired output is ...
47k views

### 1 Plot, 2 Scale/Axis

I would like to plot those two datasets on top of each other. But they have very different range on the $y$ axis. How can I have two different axis? I found the following on the help menu but quite ...
8k 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/...
3k views

### Injecting a sequence of expressions into a held expression

Consider the following toy example: Hold[{1, 2, x}] /. x -> Sequence[3, 4] It will give Hold[{1, 2, Sequence[3, 4]}] ...
4k views

### Function in Table

I need a table with the elements made of pure functions and list elements. This is a simplified example: I need a list as: ...
5k views

### How do I evaluate only one step of an expression?

I am looking for a simple, robust way to evaluate an expression only one step, and return the result in a held form. The definition of a single step is ambiguous, and this itself is probably worthy ...
18k views

### How do I save a variable or function definition to a file?

Is it possible to save a function which was created via Interpolation of some data in such a way that I can use this function in a new Mathematica session without ...
13k views

### Plotting implicitly-defined space curves

It is known that space curves can either be defined parametrically, \begin{align*}x&=f(t)\\y&=g(t)\\z&=h(t)\end{align*} or as the intersection of two surfaces, \begin{align*}F(x,y,...
6k views

### Updating Wagon's FindAllCrossings2D[] function

Stan Wagon's Mathematica in Action (second edition; I haven't read the third edition and I'm hoping to eventually see it), demonstrates a nifty function called ...
21k views

### How to compile effectively?

What are the best practices of compiling functions? I understand that this is a vague question, but let me list some aspects that might trigger useful answers. Some of these have already been answered ...
144k views

### Get a “step-by-step” evaluation in Mathematica

Is it possible in Mathematica to get a step-by-step evaluation of some functions; that's to say, outputting not only the result but all the stages that have led to it? If so, how does one do it? ...
3k views

### What's inside InterpolatingFunction[{{1., 4.}}, <>]?

I'm curious what's inside the InterpolationFunction object? For example: ...
26k views

### Creating Mathematica packages

I'm building a package to help me write packages and their documentation. In this post I explained how to make a package and its documentation. In the answer I provided I describe how to build a very ...
14k views

### Are you interested in purchasing David Wagner's “Power programming with Mathematica”?

I recently contacted McGraw-Hill to see if they have a mechanism in place for printing out-of-print books that are still of interest. Specifically, I asked about "Power programming with Mathematica" ...
24k views

### What is the difference between Reduce and Solve?

Solve and Reduce both can be used for solving equations. Just by working with them, I know there are some differences between ...
7k views

### Do I have to code each case of this Grid full of plots separately?

I have written some custom functions to draw multi-panel graphs like this one: It's done by passing a matrix of (custom) plotting functions to a MultiPanelGraph ...
29k views

### Creating legends for plots with multiple lines?

So I have a graph with multiple lists, for e.g. data = {{1,2}, {3,4}, {3,5}, {2,3} . . .} If I then do ...
9k views

### Can I simplify an expression into form which uses my own definitions?

This seems like a simple thing to do, but I couldn't find anything relevant from Mathematica documentation. So suppose I have an expression: a*b/(a + a*Cos[a/b]) ...
3k views

### Plot Option Precedence while combining Plots with Show[]

I like to build sophisticated plots by combining simpler ones with Show[]. Typically this involves setting non-default Plot-Options with the different Plot-Commands,...
18k views

### How to check if a 2D point is in a polygon?

Background: I use code from An Efficient Test For A Point To Be In A Convex Polygon Wolfram Demonstration to check if a point ( mouse pointer ) is in a ( convex ) polygon. Clearly this code fails for ...
11k views

### Finding real roots of negative numbers (for example, $\sqrt[3]{-8}$)

Say I want to quickly calculate $\sqrt[3]{-8}$, to which the most obvious solution is $-2$. When I input $\sqrt[3]{-8}$ or Power[-8, 3^-1], Mathematica gives the ...
16k views

### Struct equivalent in Mathematica?

I really miss having something like a struct in Mathematica. I know of (and regularly use) a couple of programming techniques which feel like a ...
5k views

### Analogue for Maple's dchange - change of variables in differential expressions

Maple owns an interesting function called dchange which can change the variables of differential equations, but there seems to be no such function in Mathematica. ...
25k views

### What do the X and Y axis stand for in the Fourier transform domain?

In Wolfram Mathematica the function Fourier has the following declaration Fourier[list] And after a list is given to the ...
16k views

### Performance tuning in Mathematica?

What performance tuning tricks do you use to make a Mathematica application faster? MATLAB has an amazing profiler, but from what I can tell, Mathematica has no similar functionality.
23k views

### How to avoid returning a Null if there is no “else” condition in an If construct

I need to use If but with only one option that is if "a" then do "b", else do nothing. So I wrote If[a,b] but the problem is ...
23k views

### General::ivar is not a valid variable when plotting - what actually causes this and how to avoid it?

I was just evaluating a couple of expressions and started to get errors like this: ...
23k views

### Finding unit tangent, normal, and binormal vectors for a given r(t)

For my Calc III class, I need to find $T(t), N(t)$, and $B(t)$ for $t=1, 2$, and $-1$, given $r(t)=\{t,t^2,t^3\}$. I've got Mathematica, but I've never used it before and I'm not sure how to coerce ...