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.

Supported Release

The currently supported release of Mathematica on the mathematics department systems is 8.0.4, as of 2012 June 29.

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

Mathematica runs on all our systems. If you're not familiar with the software, Wolfram provides a video introduction that will help you get a sense of what the software can do and how to work with it.

Linux Cluster

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

mathematica For the GUI version of the program
math for the Mathematica kernel (command-line version)

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 and Staff Systems (Desktops)

Faculty Linux systems can run Mathematica using the Linux instructions. Department-owned Macs and Windows systems have Mathematica installed in the standard location for applications.

Faculty and Systems (Laptops/Standalone Machines)

CIS has made the Mathematica installer available via charlie's Dist-Software volume, in the START-HERE folder, with Windows software in Windows; Linux software in Linux, and Mac software in Mac. The faculty versions are in folders called For Faculty

Once installed and started, Mathematica will ask for an “activation key”, which you should be able to generate by going to the Mathematica license-request form and filling in your information.

You must use a valid *hmc.edu e-mail address or your request won't go through (will require approval, and annoy about a dozen people across all the colleges). You should receive the activation key in your specified e-mail inbox soon after.

Faculty and Staff Home Use

To get a license (and media) to run Mathematica on a home system, you must go to register with Wolfram and supply the license number (which is available from CIS or the department's sysadmin.

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.

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

Student Licenses

Once installed and started, Mathematica will ask for an “activation key”, which you should be able to generate by going to the Mathematica license-request form for students and filling in your information.

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.

Note that with Mathematica 8, the installer includes a browser plugin that includes the functionality 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.