1.5.1 Basic Operations

Mathematica's ability to deal with symbolic expressions, as well as numbers, allows you to use it for many kinds of mathematics.

Calculus is one example. With Mathematica, you can differentiate an expression symbolically, and get a formula for the result.

This finds the derivative of .

In[1]:=  D[ x^n, x ] Out[1]=

D[f, x]	the (partial) derivative
Integrate[f, x]	the indefinite integral
Sum[f, {i, , }]	the sum
Solve[lhsrhs, x]	solution to an equation for
Series[f, {x, , order}]	a power series expansion of about the point
Limit[f, x->]	the limit
Minimize[f, x]	minimization of with respect to

Getting formulas as the results of computations is usually desirable when it is possible. There are however many circumstances where it is mathematically impossible to get an explicit formula as the result of a computation. This happens, for example, when you try to solve an equation for which there is no "closed form" solution. In such cases, you must resort to numerical methods and approximations. These are discussed in Section 1.6.