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Date Archive: 2017 November
Best of Blog
How to Win at Risk: Exact Probabilities
The classic board game Risk involves conquering the world by winning battles that are played out using dice. There are lots of places on the web where you can find out the odds of winning a battle given the number of armies that each player has. However, all the ones that I have seen do this by Monte Carlo simulation, and so are innately approximate. The Wolfram Language makes it so easy to work out the exact values that I couldn't resist calculating them once and for all.
Best of Blog
What Is a Computational Essay?
A Powerful Way to Express Ideas People are used to producing prose—and sometimes pictures—to express themselves. But in the modern age of computation, something new has become possible that I’d like to call the computational essay. I’ve been working on building the technology to support computational essays for several decades, but it’s only very recently […]
Education & Academic
What Is a Computational Essay? (Russian)
Высокоэффективный способ выражения идей
Люди привыкли к созданию прозы, а иногда изображений, для самовыражения. Но в современную эпоху вычислений появилось нечто новое, что я хотел бы назвать вычислительным эссе.
Я работаю над созданием технологии для поддержки вычислительных эссе уже в течение нескольких десятилетий, но только совсем недавно я понял, насколько вычислительные эссе могут быть важны как для формы обучения людей, так и для их формы обмена фактами и идеями. Профессионалы будущего будут регулярно предоставлять результаты и отчеты как вычислительные эссе. Педагоги будут регулярно объяснять концепции, используя вычислительные эссе. Студенты будут регулярно создавать вычислительные эссе в качестве домашней работы для своих классов.
Вот очень простой пример вычислительного эссе:
Education & Academic
Limits without Limits in Version 11.2
Here are 10 terms in a sequence:
And here's what their numerical values are:
But what is the limit of the sequence? What would one get if one continued the sequence forever?
In Mathematica and the Wolfram Language, there's a function to compute that:
Limits are a central concept in many areas, including number theory, geometry and computational complexity. They're also at the heart of calculus, not least since they're used to define the very notions of derivatives and integrals.
Mathematica and the Wolfram Language have always had capabilities for computing limits; in Version 11.2, they've been dramatically expanded. We've leveraged many areas of the Wolfram Language to achieve this, and we've invented some completely new algorithms too. And to make sure we've covered what people want, we've sampled over a million limits from Wolfram|Alpha.
Announcements & Events
What Can You Say in One Line of the Wolfram Language? The 2017 One-Liner Competition
The One-Liner Competition is a tradition at our annual Wolfram Technology Conference, which took place at our headquarters in Champaign, Illinois, two weeks ago. We challenge attendees to show us the most impressive effects they can achieve with 128 characters or fewer of Wolfram Language code. We are never disappointed, and often surprised by what they show us can be done with the language we work so hard to develop—the language we think is the world's most powerful and fun.
This year's winning submissions included melting flags, computer vision and poetry. Read on to see how far you can go with just a few characters of Wolfram Language code...
Announcements & Events
From Aircraft to Optics: Wolfram Innovator Awards 2017
As is tradition at the annual Wolfram Technology Conference, we recognize exceptional users and organizations for their innovative usage of our technologies across a variety of disciplines and fields. Nominated candidates undergo a vetting process, and are then evaluated by a panel of experts to determine winners. This year we're excited to announce the recipients of the 2017 Wolfram Innovator Awards.
Announcements & Events
Inside Scoops from the 2017 Wolfram Technology Conference
Two weeks ago at the Wolfram Technology Conference, a diverse lineup of hands-on training, workshops, talks and networking events were impressively orchestrated over the course of four days, culminating in a one-of-a-kind annual experience for users and enthusiasts of Wolfram technologies. It was a unique experience where researchers and professionals interacted directly with those who build each component of the Wolfram technology stack---Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, the Wolfram Language, Wolfram SystemModeler, Wolfram Enterprise Private Cloud and everything in between.