Mathematica Lecture Notes Pdf
Heike Fallago
If anyone does, how does it compare to paper and are there useful commands? I have a hard time remembering ctrl/alt/esc commands. I normally type faster than I write but typing equations is a pain. Especially considering that Mathematica (without WolframAlpha) doesn't show the steps to a solution, which I sometimes want to copy down.
I did this for a little while, for mathematics lectures. It's faster than typing them in LaTeX, and very shortly you won't have trouble remembering the ctrl/alt/esc commands (which you should definitely learn). For the most part it's faster than writing. Two pieces of advice:
1) Audio record the lecture (it's polite to clear this with the lecturer beforehand). You can use your computer to do it, and you already have it out. If there's something spoken that you can't get down because you are fiddling with the interface, you can make a note of the time (or evaluate a function that does so) and go back later to complete the notes.
I am actually quicker at Mathematica than handwriting because I've spent the last 4 years practicing, however I only got this fast through practice. Specifically I TAed a Mathematica course for 2 semesters and had to work at it for about 4 months before I could keep up with my professors while typing my notes.
You NEED to know the keyboard shortcuts for this to work. If you can't remember what the shortcut for integral is (hint: *esc i n t *esc) you might as well be typing in microsoft word because the amount of time to look up will be the same.
A (convertible) Tablet PC that can be used with a pen. You can then use OneNote to take handwritten notes while at the same time recording audio from the lecture. The nice thing about this approach is that your notes will be linked to the audio, making it easy to go back in time mentally. Whenever I've used this type of approach, it always amazed me how hearing the 'sound of the room' enhanced my ability to get back into the flow of the material/moment.
As long as your tablet is running a 'regular' (non-ARM) processor you can also then run Mathematica on you machine at the same time, switching back and forth between your notebook taking app of choice (Evernote is an alternative to OneNote). FYI, when taking class notes, I almost always used my tablet in 'laptop mode' so I could type or use the pen as needed.
If you only have a laptop, I'd recommend having Mathematica up and running, but I would not recommend it for typing notes 'on the fly'. IMO, it's always best to take handwritten notes (and research I've read backs this up). So likewise, if you only had a non-convertible tablet at your disposal, I'd recommend using it for taking handwritten notes (and recording audio, if possible/allowed).
After class you could type up and revise your notes in Mathematica as part of your study routine. However, the usefulness of this approach will IMO depend on the amount/type of mathematical content involved in the class. Explicit, well formed examples/problems work best, whereas purely symbolic examples/problems can lead to headaches rather quickly (depending on what your trying to accomplish and how good you are in Mathematica).
Whatever you choose, don't let tools disrupt your workflow or derail you from what you actually need to accomplish. (Mathematica can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your level of expertise and your ability to stay on task. I've lost many an hour bouncing around the documentation center, playing, etc...)
This page links to my lecture notes and course supplements.While I do what I can to make these notes accurate andcomplete, you are responsible to be a critical reader.These notes are under development; they are a draft rather than a final version.
My notes often have math or graphics in them.I will usually post them as Acrobat PDF files,which you can computer that has a recent PDF reader installed on it.If you use Acrobat Reader,you can annotate these notes just as you would a printed version.I recommend this approach:it is very convenient, and it saves trees.Acrobat Reader is available at no cost.
If you must have a hardcopy of my notes,it is best to download the PDF file before printing it.I have noticed occasional missing fonts when I try to print directly from a browser.You should also watch for other bugs in the browser plug-ins.Some versions of Internet Explorer do not correctly handle named destinations in PDF files,and early versions of Edge do not allow you to pick a download location on a per file basis.For most convenience,use another browser (perhaps Opera orFireFox).
Introductory Talking Points from Class (by request)(PDF HTML).Comment: these are just brief summaries of points made in class.You are responsible for detecting problems with these quick notes.(Please tell me of any typos or errors.)Additional Talking Points from Class.
Please understand that I am making available to you my notes from previous years.Naturally I will add and subtract from these when developing this year's lectures,so they are similar to but not identical to what you see in class.
Please understand that I am making last year's notes available to you.Naturally I will add and subtract from these when developing this year's lectures,so they are not identical to what you see in class.
This is a Prof. Masatsugu Suzuki's personal web page, where his lecture notes are posted. Prof. Suzuki's official page:
Research Information
Publication List
Advisors & Collaborators Lecture Notes:
General Physics
Computational Physics-about
Computational Physics-contents
Method of Theoretical Physics
Modern Physics
Solid State Physics
Quantum Mechanics - Graduate course
Quantum Mechanics I
Quantum Mechanics II
Senior Laboratory
Statistical Thermodynamics Lecture Notes of Computational Physics (Mathematica) The Computational Physics 468 was taught at the State University of New York at Binghamton during the Spring Semester, 2010. Both undergraduate students and graduate students attended this class and learn how to solve various kinds of problems of physics and mathematics by using a Mathematica 7.0, and understand the essence of physics including classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, solid state physics, special relativity, statistical mechanics, and so on.
One can easily find so many fancy Mathematica programs through the Internets and many Mathematica books. Unfortunately, the author (physicist, but not an expert of Mathematica) has some difficulty in understanding such sophisticated techniques used in the Mathematica programs.
In the above lecture notes, we do not use any sophisticated techniques to make programs. So many students and researchers who are not so familiar with the use of Mathematica, can easily understand the essence of physics; how to solve the physics problems (by visualizing). I think that there are mistakes and typo in this lecture note. They will be revised in near future.
so I'm going to be studying physics next week and I'm preparing my stuff for it. I've been looking for a software to take notes at lectures to add some information to the script or to help my understanding of the topic. As physics is a mathematical study you need to be able to write down equations and stuff in addition to your notes.
I saw that with Mathematica you can write headlines and stuff. I tried but it didn't quite work and I couldn't find any good tutorials (mostly because I honestly don't really know what to search for).
So my question is: Is Mathematica capable of being (kind of) a notebook and is it handy enough to use it as such? (I found some tutorials on "notebooks" in Mathematica but I think that's just a document type of Mathematica, isn't it?)
That will let you take natural language notes.However: Mathematica has a steep learning curve, even for simple tasks. You need, I'd say, about 8 hours of practice transcribing with the above to develop the reflexes you need to keep up with a lecture. Try taking notes on a YouTube nature documentary, or a presentation with actual formulae if you can find one. If you want to try copying formulae, I'd say you need another 16 hours of practice, 3 work days total. Try working calculus or advanced algebra problems. Unless you get very good (touch typing level), you might be better off using paper and pencil. Becoming proficient involves learning the various editing commands and keyboard shortcuts listed under Edit at to of each notebook file.
If you can become proficient enough, there are some advantages to running examples of the methods listed in the lecture. However, be aware that course problems are a very special case. Varying course problems even a little bit can lead to problems that are very hard to solve, or even to understand, even with Mathematica. Be careful when you poke around the mathematics; you can find yourself in a time trap. Note it and get back to the assigned work. You learn about traps in graduate school.
So: Yes, you can do it. Becoming proficient enough to do it would help very much if extensive work in Mathematica is likely. However, don't walk into class and try to use Mathematica for the first time. You'll lose the lecture and likely your composure as well. You're good or you wouldn't be taking the course, but nobody good enough to go in cold and take useful notes in Mathematica.
I personally only take math lecture notes in $\LaTeX$; there are several benefits to doing this and I don't think it's as hard to learn as you think it is. I certainly don't have a problem with keeping up with lecturers. See this blog post and some of the answers at this MO question.
Qiaochu's suggestion of LaTeX is also what I would recommend. In this vein, I find it useful to define large numbers of keyboard shortcuts (this can be easily done in vim, for instance, which can be downloaded for Mac OS X). For instance, I map "5thm" to a theorem environment, and I usually have Greek letters expand when about half of them is typed (e.g. \alp -> \alpha).I have done this (cf. my website for examples of notes with source code) and don't generally have a problem keeping up with the lecturer. Commutative diagrams are slightly trickier, but they can be done. If you want to live-TikZ your notes, I'm afraid I can't help; but you should learn LaTeX first!
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