Wolfram Demonstration Project: More Fun Than It Should Be
Wolfram Research the publisher of the most excellent software Mathematica, has just put up a site that shows some of the power of their software.
Called Wolfram Demonstrations Project, here’s the info from the email I just received:
I’m excited to be able to announce the launch of a major new resource for research and education: The Wolfram Demonstrations Project.
The Demonstrations Project already has more than a thousand interactive demonstrations, spanning many fields and levels, and starting today, it’s open for contributors.
We’re very excited by the possibilities for creating a new generation of interactive educational material, and for presenting research results in a newly dynamic way.
The demonstrations and the software to run them is free, and their code (which is often just a few lines of Mathematica) is open and accessible.
The Demonstrations Project is an extension of our commitment to research and education with free websites such as Wolfram MathWorld, The Wolfram Functions Site and WolframTones.
The Demonstrations Project is made possible by the new version of Mathematica that we’ve been developing for many years–and have just released.
I rely quite heavily on Mathematica and have been using it since the MS-DOS version. I used extensively as an undergraduate too, I was always appreciative of the professors that let me hand in my homework problems sets in the form of a Mathematica notebook file.
The power of this software really shines when you start creating your one programs with it, as this site demonstrates. There is an extensive number of physics, astronomy and astrophysics demonstrations there to play with. I had fun with the Toy Model of an Inflating Wormhole, for reasons I’m not willing to share just now…
Here’s a screenshot of a demonstration of binary star atmospheres:
Screenshot Credit: Wolfram Research
All of these demonstrations can be previewed on the website, but to actually run them and play with the parameters of the various simulations, you need to run them on your own computer. For that, you’ll need to download the free Mathematica Player onto your computer, then download the individual demonstration.
Technorati Tags: astronomy education, astronomy simulations, Mathematica, Wolfram Demonstration Project
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1 opinion for Wolfram Demonstration Project: More Fun Than It Should Be
julie
May 5, 2007 at 6:20 am
An interesting tidbit to note is that Wolfram Research’s worldwide headquarters is where I live in good ol’ Champaign, IL. ;)
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