ABSTRACT

"…an excellent text for either a short course or self-study… Professor Napolitano has figured out what students really need, and found a way to deliver it… I have found everything he writes to be worthy of my serious attention…"
—Peter D. Persans, Professor of Physics and Director, Center for Integrated Electronics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Learn how to use Mathematica quickly for basic problems in physics. The author introduces all the key techniques and then shows how they’re applied using common examples. Chapters cover elementary mathematics concepts, differential and integral calculus, differential equations, vectors and matrices, data analysis, random number generation, animation, and visualization.

  • Written in an appealing, conversational style
  • Presents important concepts within the framework of Mathematics
  • Gives examples from frequently encountered physics problems
  • Explains problem-solving in a step-by-step fashion

Jim Napolitano is professor and chair in the Department of Physics at Temple University. He is the author of other textbooks, including co-author with Alistair Rae of Quantum Mechanics, Sixth Edition, also published by Taylor & Francis / CRC Press.

chapter 1|13 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|15 pages

Solving Algebraic Equations

chapter 3|11 pages

Derivatives, Integrals, and Series

chapter 4|15 pages

Differential Equations: Analytic Solutions

chapter 6|16 pages

Vectors and Matrices

chapter 7|13 pages

Basic Data Analysis

chapter 8|19 pages

Fitting Data to Models

chapter 9|14 pages

Numerical Manipulations

chapter 10|17 pages

Random Numbers

chapter 11|16 pages

Animation

chapter 12|20 pages

Advanced Plotting and Visualization