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Mathematica Support

Mathematica is a fully integrated environment for technical computing, combining interactive calculation (both numeric and symbolic), visualization tools, and a complete programming environment. The Mathematica notebook interface provides an interactive technical document format which combines typeset mathematical expressions, formatted text, hypertext, and graphics, as well as fully customizable buttons and palettes. Mathematica also has a communications protocol named MathLink, which allows it to communicate and share data with other programs written in C, C++, and Fortran.

The University has an unlimited site license for Mathematica 6.0 on the following platforms: IBM AIX (64-bit), SGI IRIX (64-bit), Sun Solaris (64-bit), Linux, Windows (XP and Vista), and Mac. The site license has been expanded to allow students at UVa to install Mathematica on their personal computers. Students can obtain a copy of Mathematica 6.0 for their personal computers by logging into the ITC licensing database. from the ITC licensing database at web.virginia.edu/rescomp.

ITC is also distributing CDs of Mathematica 6.0 for installation on University-owned computers, including Windows (XP and Vista), Linux, and Mac OS X platforms, from either the Research Computing Lab in the Brown Science and Engineering Library, Clark Hall, or the Scholars' Lab in Alderman Library, 4th floor.

Faculty can get a copy of Mathematica for home use by contacting Wolfram Research directly. These copies of Mathematica are specifically meant to be used off-campus on non-university owned machines by faculty. To get copy of Mathematica for faculty home use, go to the URL www.wolfram.com/solutions/highered/homeuse.cgi. You will need the University's Mathematica site license number which can be obtained from the ITC licensing database at web.virginia.edu/rescomp. A specific license number will accompany the home use license which is needed to register the standalone copy and request a password for operation.

Student and faculty copies of Mathematica will require get a new password every year by June 10 to continue operation of your standalone copy.

Mathematica 6.0 is currently available on ITC's Unix platforms using the path /uva/bin/mathematica. Mathematica 5.2 is available as /uva/bin/mathematica.old. Mathematica 6.0 will be available in ITC's Public Labs under Start/Programs/Computational Science/Mathematica.

You should also contact the Mathematica account representative if you want to purchase one of the separately licensed application packages.

Upgrade Announcement
Announcement concerning the most recent upgrade of Mathematica.

Mathematica Built-in Functions
The Mathematica system contains a large number of built­in functions. Follow the link above to learn more about the Mathematica Built-in Functions.

Mathematica Standard Add-on Packages
Mathematica also includes a collection of standard add­on packages that define many additional functions in areas such as algebra, calculus, graphics, discrete and numerical mathematics, number theory, and statistics.

Access from Unix Platforms

Access from Windows and Macs

Access From Unix Platforms

1. The filesystem /common should be mounted from the Unix server jeeves.itc.virginia.edu to the Unix platforms (Sun Solaris, SGI IRIX, IBM AIX, Linux) that you are logged into. In addition, the directory for the appropriate platform (e.g. /solaris or /linux) should also be mounted from jeeves.itc and a symbolic link created from the uva subdirectory of the platform directory (e.g. /linux/i386/glibc2.2/uva) to /uva on the host machine. This is done by default on all ITC maintained Unix machines.

   You can obtain a unix account on the RS/6000 cluster blue.unix from the Accounts webpage. You should log into blue.unix using the X-server software Exceed (available in ITC Public Labs) to establish a graphical interface.

   Mathematica can also be installed locally on a Unix machine instead of mounting the filesystem from the Unix server, although the local copy would still have to communicate with the Mathematica license manager. The name of the license manager server can be found on the software licensing webpage (sign up for Mathematica for Unix/Linux). Users wishing to install Mathematica locally on any of the Unix platforms listed above should go to the Research Computing Support Center in Wilson Hall 244 to obtain a free copy on CDROM. The disadvantages of a local installation on a Unix host as opposed to mounting Mathematica from the Unix server are that it would use a large amount of local disk space and that periodic upgrades would require a reinstall locally whereas this is taken care of automatically by ITC on the mounted filesystem.
   

   The following link provides installation instructions for the Unix platform to access the network-based licenses. The installation requires the name of the license server running the Mathematica license manager, which can be found on the software licensing webpage. The Linux version of Mathematica is contained on the Windows/Mac installation CD.

2. Running Mathematica (/uva/bin should be part of your PATH variable by default).

   Start Mathematica notebook grahical user interface:

         mathematica
   

   Start Mathematica text-based user interface:

         math
   

3. Running Mathematica remotely

   If you are running Mathematica on a Unix machine other than the one you originally logged onto (i.e. running it remotely through a telnet connection), you will have to reset the DISPLAY variable on the remote machine to that of the machine you are logged onto. You can determine the value of the local DISPLAY variable by typing,

      echo $DISPLAY
   

   Then set your local machine to allow the display from the remote machine with the command,

      xhost +remote.dept.virginia.edu
   

   Finally, once you are logged onto the remote machine on which you will run Mathematica, type,

      DISPLAY=machine.local.virginia.edu:0.0;export DISPLAY
   

   where machine.local.virginia.edu is the value returned by the echo command.

   Note: If you use the secure shell client slogin to connect to a remote machine, you do not have to reset the remote DISPLAY variable.

4. Running Mathematica in batch mode.

   Mathematica can be run in a non-interactive (batch) mode with an input file, e.g. math_script.m, containing the commands which would have been executed in the command window of Mathematica. To submit the job and then be able to logout, use the Unix command,

      nohup math < math_script.m > output_file &
   

   and output from the session will be written to a file named output_file. You can run a job at a specified time when the computer is less likely to be loaded down with other tasks using the Unix at command as follows:

      echo "math < math_script.m > output_file" | at hh:mm
   

   and the Mathematica job will run at the specified time hh:mm, e.g. 01:00 for 1 am.

   If your job takes more than one hour of cpu time to run, it is strongly suggested that you apply for an account on the Aspen Linux cluster.

Access From Windows and Macs

The following links provide installation instructions for installing Mathematica 6.0 for both the Windows and Mac platforms (must be University owned) to access the network-based licenses. The installation instructions require the name of the license server running the Mathematica license manager, which can be found on the software licensing webpage (sign up for Mathematica for Windows or Mathematica for Macintosh).

The computer must be connected to the University network, either on grounds or through and ISP, to communicate with the license manager.

Alternatively, users may purchase X-server software (Exceed for Windows machines) so that they can log into a Unix machine to run Mathematica from their PC or Mac and have it display properly on their machine.

Because the notebook interface requires special fonts, users will have to configure Exceed to access the ITC font server (this is already taken care of in ITC Public Labs) and is described on the Web page Exceed Configuration Instructions.

Information about a particular Mathematica command (e.g. Solve) can obtained by typing ? and then the command name at the Mathematica input prompt. More detailed information can be obtained by using ??.

In[1]:= ??Solve
Solve[eqns, vars] attempts to solve an equation or set of equations for the
   variables vars. Solve[eqns, vars, elims] attempts to solve the equations
   for vars, eliminating the variables elims.

Attributes[Solve] = {Protected}
 
Options[Solve] = {InverseFunctions -> Automatic, MakeRules -> False, 
    Method -> 3, Mode -> Generic, Sort -> True, VerifySolutions -> Automatic, 
    WorkingPrecision -> Infinity}

In[2]:= 

All Mathematica documentation is online and can be accessed through the Help Browser. The Help Browser can be invoked from the Help Menu of the Mathematica notebook interface. The Mathematica Book, Fourth Edition is available through the help browser as well as the manaul for the Standard Add-on Packages.

The hardcopy manuals for Mathematica and the Standard Add-On Packages are available for reference in the Research Computing Support Center in Wilson Hall, room 244. Additional copies of the manuals can be ordered through The Mathematica Bookstore.

Tutorial Documents

Getting Started
Wolfram Research's Getting Started Guide.

Wolfram Research Mathematica Tutorials
Wolfram Research's self-guided, introductory Mathematica tutorials. These tutorials are also available in notebook format.

Many useful documents in Mathematica's notebook format (with .nb extension) are available on the Web and can be accessed from a Web browser by configuring the browser to use Mathematica as a helper application. Then the Web browser will start Mathematica automatically when you point to a Mathematica document. This assumes that Mathematica is available/installed on the same machine from which you are running the Web browser.

If users cannot find the answers to their questions in the online documentation, they can email their questions to ITC Research Computing Support.

Local FAQ
Frequently asked (or interesting) questions about Mathematica the have been submitted to ITC.

Wolfram Research FAQs
Technical Questions about Wolfram Research Products.

Mathematica Feature Summary
A listing of the key features of Mathematica.

Mathematica Demos
Notebooks that show the range of Mathematica applications and the use of some of its special features.

Discipline Specific Examples
Mathematica used in an integrated way for specific fields of study.

MATHwire Electroinc Newsletter
Email list with what's new in the world of Mathematica--new products and services, interesting and unique discoveries, announcements of events, and more..

Mathematica Application Library
Specialized Application Packages written for Mathematica.

The Mathematica Journal
Homepage of journal for those who use Mathematica.

Mathematica Newsgroup
Newsgroup devoted to issues involving use of Mathematica.