Using Mathematica as a whiteboard

September 29th, 2009 | Categories: math software, mathcad, mathematica | Tags:

So here’s a way of using Mathematica that, I have to admit, never occurred to me.

Essentially the idea is to make a big, empty graphic and then use the 2d drawing tools palette tools along with equation palettes and the ‘Evaluate in place’ menu item to produce a Mathcad-like interface. I like it!

It’s a neat trick but I highly doubt that it would be enough to lure Mathcad users away from their application of choice. Any thoughts?

  1. September 29th, 2009 at 20:54
    Reply | Quote | #1

    This is absolutely no way to teach mathematics to students! Please tell me that is not the intention of this video… integrating or graphing a polynomial is not magic – and it had better be absolutely second nature for any math teacher to compose this example on a board from scratch – where students would have a chance to think about what is going on and watch the interplay between analytic geometry and calculus in action.

  2. Mike Croucher
    September 30th, 2009 at 10:22
    Reply | Quote | #2

    Hi Tom

    I think that the maths was kept simple to avoid distracting from the main point which was to show that you could use Mathematica as a Whiteboard in a similar manner to the way one would use Mathcad. It’s just a technology demonstration – how you use it is up to you.

    Of course it would also be trivial to use integration examples which very few (if any) math teachers (or indeed any human) could solve.

    Mike

  3. Neil Johnson
    October 21st, 2009 at 23:09
    Reply | Quote | #3

    Mike,

    There is a very low cost version of MathCad called Studyworks. Its mostly compatible with all MathCad 2000 mcd files. MathSoft/PTC stopped supporting this product many years ago, however you can still find it on the web.

    –Neil

  4. October 22nd, 2009 at 08:08
    Reply | Quote | #4

    HI Neil

    Thanks for that – I’ll look out for it. Mathcad’s future looks uncertain IMHO – they have Mathcad Prime coming but from what I have heard it is pretty but devoid of useful features such as symbolics and programming constructs. Saying that though – I didn’t get to play with a beta version so it’s all just conjecture.

    Mike