Mathematica

Wolfram Research's Mathematica is a technical computing environment that allows you to perform symbolic and numerical calculations. It also includes mathematical “word-processing” functions.

Our Licenses

The Claremont Colleges have a site license for Mathematica that allows its installation and use on lab, faculty, staff, and student machines. Our license also supports the use of Mathematica on home machines by faculty and staff.

Running Mathematica

Linux Cluster

For the Linux cluster systems, Mathematica can be started by typing

Windows and Mac OS X

On Windows and Mac OS X systems, the program can be launched by double-clicking its icon or selecting the program name from a program menu.

Depending on your operating system, there may be additional command-line programs available.

Getting Mathematica

Faculty Systems (On Campus)

Faculty Linux systems can run Mathematica using the Linux instructions. Department-owned Macs and Windows systems will have Mathematica installed on them as soon as possible.

Faculty and Staff Home Use

At the moment, the procedure for getting a license (and media) to run Mathematica on a home system requires you to register with Wolfram and supply the license number that was distributed by Elizabeth Hodas in her message to the staff and faculty lists.

You will be asked to choose a method of verifying your eligibility.

You may download the installer (which is fairly large) or request a CD from Wolfram.

CIS is looking into whether it will be possible to make the media available for checkout so you can get started more quickly.

Student Licenses

CIS has made the Mathematica installer available via charlie's DIST-SOFTWARE volume. Windows software is in PC/Mathematica; Linux software in Linux/Mathematica, and Mac software in ???.

Once installed and started, Mathematica will ask for a license number, which you can find in a file called StudentLicense.pdf in same directory as the installer.

You can use that license number to generate a “MathID”, which can be entered into the form at register.wolfram.com. Once you've registered, Wolfram will e-mail you a code that will enable your copy of Mathematica.

MathReader

MathReader is an application that allows you to read Mathematica's notebook format. It's a useful tool to allow your colleagues without Mathematica to look through your notebooks. It can be downloaded from Wolfram Research. We also have more information about our own installation of MathReader.

Mailing List

The Claremont Colleges have a mailing list for Mathematica users to share tips & tricks and ask for help in using Mathematica. You can subscribe to the list by sending an e-mail message to listmaster AT claremont DOT edu with the line

subscribe mathematica-l

in the body (not the Subject line) of your message.