1. Mathematica & Physics Textbooks J.W. Gray, "Mastering Mathematica: Programming Methods & Applications", Academic Press (1994) R.L. Zimmerman and F.I. Olness, "Mathematica for Physics", Addison-Wesley (1994) Web Site: http://ckw.phys.ncku.edu.tw/ Homework submission: class@ckw.phys.ncku.edu.tw

2. Using Mathematica As a fancy symbolic & numerical calculator. –Powerful built-in functions  minimizes programming effort. –Interactive programming  easy to debug. As a graphics generator. As a general programming facility (advanced usage): –Procedural ( Not recommanded ) –Functional. –Rule-based.. As a word processor for documents with computations. –AuthorTools As a software / library developer. –Mathlink, DatabaseLink, J/Link,.NET/Link –GUIKit

3. Pitfalls Suffered by Inexperienced Users Lack of control on symbolic calculations. Unexpected side-effects. Unduly long computation times.