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Announcements & Events

Planning the Wolfram Technology Conference

I think last year’s Wolfram Technology Conference went pretty well. Lots of interesting talks, and I even got to wear fangs and a tie in preparation for Halloween. I did have a couple of misgivings. The days started early and went late, and in some instances I thought certain simultaneous talks in parallel tracks should have been separated. A colleague of mine felt similarly. We both voiced our concerns to the SPTB (Scheduling Powers That Be). Bad idea---now we’re dragged in for scheduling this year’s Technology Conference. (Some Midwesterners might say “drug in.” But I’m from somewhere else.) As the conference takes place October 11-13, this means there has to be some serious scheduling work afoot right now.
Daniel Lichtblau, Symbolic Algorithms Developer, Algorithms R&D
Education & Academic

Analyzing the Fed Rate Cut in Mathematica

The Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate this week for the first time in four years. And it happens that I am working on a new economics data function for Mathematica---so I wanted to see what typically results after such a reduction in the federal funds rate. The Fed makes much of its data available on the web through the FRED II database. So, all I had to do was point Mathematica's powerful Import function to the site, and I instantly had the data in Mathematica for analysis. It took one line of code. A couple of short Mathematica evaluations later, and I had a list of all the previous occasions when this rate fell 0.5% or more. I immediately noticed that these large drops sometimes come in “runs,” and decided to focus on the large cuts in each such sequence. I found 15 of these which go back to 1954.
Jason Cawley, Chief of Operations, Wolfram Solutions
Education & Academic

Not Another Tsunami

Today’s earthquakes near Sumatra fortunately didn’t lead to a major tsunami. But figuring out when tsunamis will develop is a difficult matter---and an interesting exercise in applied mathematics. The main phenomenon is the propagation of so-called shallow water waves---water waves whose wavelength is large compared to the depth of the ocean. Those waves satisfy a partial differential equation (PDE) that was figured out in the 1800s. The equation is a nasty nonlinear one---that can’t be solved exactly. I’ve been working on the numerical differential equation capabilities of Mathematica for more than a decade. Our goal is to automate the solutions of all types of equations---so users just have to enter their equation, and Mathematica then does all the analysis to select and apply the best algorithm. The shallow-water equations are a good test---that I’m happy to say Mathematica passes with flying colors. One essentially just has to type the equations in, and get the solution, which is then easy to visualize---especially using the new visualization capabilities of Mathematica 6. (Click the image below to see the Mathematica animation.) Let me explain a little about what’s involved in getting this.
Rob Knapp, Manager of Numerical Computation, Algorithms R&D
Announcements & Events

My Hobby: Hunting for Our Universe

I don’t have much time for hobbies these days, but occasionally I get to indulge a bit. A few days ago I did a videoconference talking about one of my favorite hobbies: hunting for the fundamental laws of physics. Physics was my first field (in fact, I became a card-carrying physicist when I was a […]

Stephen Wolfram
Announcements & Events

And Now for Our Featured Presentation…

It’s been a few weeks since we returned from San Diego, after participating in SIGGRAPH 2007---one of the most prestigious conferences around for the computer graphics crowd. It’s no surprise how popular we’ve become there, considering that so many computer scientists, professional artists and enthusiasts use Mathematica to generate some of their most fascinating graphics. We were a big hit at the 2006 conference, with the then-upcoming Mathematica 6 in our hands. Its graphics and interactivity capabilities were stronger than ever and fit perfectly into the show. Encouraged by that success, we decided to raise the bar this year. But while preparing for the show, we had to answer one daunting question: how could we please an audience so accustomed to the fancy graphics, animations and effects of Hollywood? Well, the answer was obvious. Just do what Mathematica does best: working with mathematical formulas, generating algorithmic content, visualizing real-world data... These things are at the core of the system, and we knew they’d draw a lot of interest at SIGGRAPH.
Yu-Sung Chang, Technical Communication & Strategy Group
Education & Academic

Back to School

My two high-schoolers constantly struggle with math and science. And every time I sit down to help them out, I get my own slightly sweaty flashback to my school days, reminded of how glad I am not to be dealing with homework and boring classes every day. With all the technological distractions available to kids now, it’s hard to get them to crack a book open. On the other hand, technology also offers the means to engross modern students in their classwork. Working on Mathematica makes that all too obvious to me, but after 17 years at Wolfram Research, I’ve been so close to and inside our development process that I’ve been taking the obvious for granted. Sure, once in a while I check the kids’ algebra homework using Solve. But sticking a computer in front of every student in a classroom is probably not the best way to engage them as a group. Engaging kids is going to get easier now with a combination of two things coming together, which a few of us got to preview at our recent Mathematica Publishing Day event in Oxford.
André Kuzniarek, Director of Document and Media Systems
Computation & Analysis

Equations or Exploding Teapots?

This is not something I generally admit, but I have a couple of teenagers. It’s not that I’m embarrassed about having them, or what it says about my age, but rather that they are a bit embarrassed about having me. If you have some of your own, you understand. My point is this: I am a certified bore, and I have kids to prove it. With such a background it is understandable that I sometimes talk about arcane things like computational math. But (and this is important), even folks who live in that world need something to keep their attention. That is to say, just because a bunch of us are interested in the same topic does not mean we won’t bore one another to tears.
Daniel Lichtblau, Symbolic Algorithms Developer, Algorithms R&D
Education & Academic

Work in the Land of Lakes and Volcanoes (Trabajo en la Tierra de Lagos y Volcanes)

Most of the time I’ve spent working for Wolfram Research has been in the comfort of a climate-controlled office at our Champaign, Illinois headquarters. I’ve had easy access to my great co-workers, multiple computers and a Gigabit local network. I’ve had flexible working hours, a relatively short and pleasant bicycle commute, numerous delicious restaurants nearby and a window overlooking the beautiful campus of the University of Illinois (okay, and the roof of a McDonald’s). All things considered, it’s a pretty good place to be. When I told Theo (my boss) that I wanted to give all this up and spend a year living in a Nicaraguan jungle, there was a bit of hesitation, but not much. We agreed fairly quickly that we could make it work. Here’s where I was headed:
Robert Raguet-Schofield, User Interface Architect, Mobile Development
Education & Academic

The Equations of the Bridge

I work on computational algorithms for Mathematica, and I always like to see that what I do is helpful in solving real-world problems. When I heard about the I-35W bridge collapse, I wanted to see if anything could be learned from computing the mechanics of the bridge with Mathematica. Large packages have been written for doing structural computations with Mathematica. But I wanted to start from first principles to try to understand the whole picture. A truss bridge can be thought of as a graph, with trusses as edges and joints as nodes, as in the picture here:
Yifan Hu, Kernel Technology
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