Getting Started

First things first

Whether you are a parent, pre-college student, college or graduate student, or a professional researcher, send me an email atdiscovery@scientificarts.comand let’s arrange to have a phone conversation so that I can answer all of your questions and discuss with you more about your needs and the process that we will take.

Getting Mathematica

For lessons it is essential for you should have a paid, installed, copy of Mathematica.  This should be the desktop version (as opposed to a cloud only version).

Check with your institution to see if they have a site license for Mathematica. If not, see below for several ways to purchase.

For students and home users the price for Mathematica is quite affordable. And both theStudent Versionand theHome Use Versionare full featured, so there is no compromise in terms of what you can do and learn with them.

Installation is straightforward. So be sure to have installed your Mathematica and played with it a bit before we first meet so that no time is wasted.  See the video below for a very basic getting started introduction.

Trial version

Using a trial version of Mathematica is not recommended as some features are limited. But this may be used for initial discussions before lessons start and to work though some beginning videos, explore theWolfram Demonstrations Project, and more...

http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/trial/

Students

Individual student prices for Mathematica:

http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/students.php

Researchers

Industry/Individuals prices for Mathematica:

http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/industry-individuals.php?desktop

Government prices for Mathematica:

http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/pricing/government.php?desktop

Watch this very introductory video on how to start working with Mathematica

So that you can dive in and start to play with Mathematica before we have any sessions together I have put together this informal “let’s get started” tour of how to interact with Mathematica. (Make the video full-screen to see the details by clicking on the full screen toggle in the lower right hand corner of the embedded YouTube video once you start playing it.)

After watching this you can try to work through some of the material in this tutorial that I wrote for my daughter several years ago (a Mathematica notebook version is here). But that's not mandatory, we'll cover all of that in our sessions. (The story behind that tutorial is on the Finding Things Out page.) You can also watch some of these introductory instructional videos from the Wolfram web site.

Arrange for a free session with me

We will have a one hour session at no cost to make sure that the Discovery model is the right fit for you. We will set up the technology for our interactive sessions and get you launched into the process. Email me atdiscovery@scientificarts.com to arrange a phone conversation to discuss your interests and to schedule this session.