Modern computational tools are important in diverse disciplines, and they are clearly essential in fields requiring sophisticated mathematics, complicated numerics or the processing of large amounts of data.  Over time each field has developed an array of their own specialised solutions or packages.

However, a campus-wide license has recently been obtained for the package Mathematica developed by Wolfram Research Inc. Mathematica is one of a very small group of extremely powerful, high-level software packages specialising in advanced algebraic, numerical and image processing computation.

At Stellenbosch University colleagues have been using it successfully in the biological, mathematical and physical sciences, and also in economic and management sciences for both teaching and research.  It is therefore really worthwhile exploring whether it is suitable for your academic work too.

In addition to its function as a high-performance research tool it is has also developed to be an efficient, user-friendly teaching device.  It is powerful beyond any other general symbolic manipulation package, and easy to use at base level.  Mathematica places the emphasis on computation of mathematical objects and comes with its own formal language.  It also interfaces with an extensive audited database, which might be known to some readers through the Wolfram Alpha website.

For a license to use the Mathematica software, please contact narga@sun.ac.za.

[Article by Kristian Muller-Nedebock]