Wolfram Computation Meets Knowledge

Education & Academic

How Intel ISEF Students Use Mathematica

Working for Wolfram Sponsorships is a little bit like playing Santa Claus to thousands of talented students all over the world. It's a privilege to get a glimpse of their projects and achievements, and I enjoy hearing from them about how they've used their Wolfram awards. One of my favorite sponsorships is the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), currently underway in Los Angeles. For the ninth consecutive year, Wolfram Research has been a proud sponsor of this event. A program of Society for Science & the Public, the Intel ISEF is the world's largest pre-college science competition, and includes more than 1,700 high school students from more than 70 countries, regions, and territories. Each year, the finalists showcase their independent research as they compete for more than $5 million in awards. The ISEF encourages millions of students worldwide to explore their passion for innovation and develop solutions for global challenges.
Design & Visualization

2048, Wolfram Style

If you've been anywhere on the internet these past few weeks, there's little doubt that you've come across the game 2048 (made by Gabriele Cirulli). Based on the similar games 1024! (by Veewo Studio) and THREES (by Asher Vollmer), this game has a simple mechanic that can leave you puzzled for days---slide powers of two around a grid, and combine them to make higher powers of two. The goal is to get to 2048. It's hard to explain just how fun and challenging this game is, so I recommend playing it for yourself. So, as a tribute to this little game (and in honor of all games mathematical!), I thought it would be fun to demonstrate the power of the Wolfram Language by using it to make our own version of 2048. Let's go! The basic structure for the game board will be a 4X4 matrix, initialized with an empty element in each position:
Announcements & Events

New Books Using Wolfram Technologies

Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha are powerful technologies for deepening students' and researchers' understanding of complex topics in math and science. These recently published books incorporate engaging Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha examples and code into texts written for undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers. Composite Materials in Piping Applications: Design, Analysis and Optimization of Subsea and Onshore Pipelines Dimitrios G. Pavlou explains the design, analysis, and performance of composite materials in oil, gas, water, and waste-water piping. The text is accompanied by a CD-ROM containing algorithms for pipe design and analysis using Mathematica. Topology of Digital Images: Visual Pattern Discovery in Proximity Spaces James F. Peters carries forward recent work on visual patterns and structures in digital images and introduces a near set-based topology in this book. To provide a better understanding of digital images, Mathematica scripts are used to illustrate the fabric and essential features of images. Green's Functions in the Theory of Ordinary Differential Equations In this text written for graduate students and researchers interested in the theoretical underpinnings of boundary value problem solutions, Alberto Cabada provides a complete and exhaustive study of Green's functions, including two appendices with Mathematica content.
Announcements & Events

Q&A with SpinDynamica Creator Malcolm Levitt

Professor Malcolm Levitt is Head of Magnetic Resonance at the University of Southampton and a leader in the field of magnetic resonance research. In the early 2000s, he began programming SpinDynamica---a set of Mathematica packages that run spin dynamical calculations---to explore magnetic resonance concepts and develop experiments. SpinDynamica is an open-source package that Professor Levitt continues to work on as a hobby in his spare time, but the SpinDynamica community also contributes add-ons to bring additional functionality to researchers. Professor Levitt graciously agreed to answer a few of our questions about his work, Mathematica, and SpinDynamica. He's hopeful that as word spreads, others will submit add-ons that enhance the core functionality of SpinDynamica.
Education & Academic

Get Hacking with Wolfram Technologies

It probably comes as no surprise that Wolfram has been asked to participate in a number of hackathons recently, including the upcoming HackIllinois. There's a natural fit between our pioneering, agile approach to technology development and the growing hackathon phenomenon, in which coders come together for a short but intensive time---either individually or in teams---to create new and unique software or hardware applications. Last month while at SXSW 2014, Wolfram helped provide support for Slashathon, the first-ever music-focused hackathon. Hosted by Slash from Guns N' Roses, the winning hack will be used to help release Slash's new album. Wolfram provided mentoring for the competition in the form of onsite coding experts and technology access.
Announcements & Events

A Highly Interactive SXSW

If you were one of the 72,000 highly energized people in Austin, Texas, earlier this month for the 2014 SXSW Music, Film, and Interactive Festival, you might have had the opportunity to connect with Stephen Wolfram and the Wolfram team at this year's event. Known for showcasing cutting-edge technologies and digital creativity, Stephen was invited by the SXSW committee to present a featured talk for the third year in a row. If you missed Stephen live in Austin---and even if you didn't---the "speaker's cut" of his featured talk, "Injecting Computation Everywhere," was posted to his Blog last week. In it, Stephen presents his vision of a future where there is no distinction between code and data, and showcases the Wolfram Language through examples and demos using Wolfram Programming Cloud, Data Science Platform, and other upcoming Wolfram technologies.
Products

Injecting Computation Everywhere–A SXSW Update

Two weeks ago I spoke at SXSW Interactive in Austin, TX. Here’s a slightly edited transcript (it’s the “speaker’s cut”, including some demos I had to abandon during the talk): Well, I’ve got a lot planned for this hour. Basically, I want to tell you a story that’s been unfolding for me for about the […]

Announcements & Events

Bridging Architecture and Engineering with Mathematica

As an instructor at the School of Architecture Paris-Malaquais, Maurizio Brocato chooses to use Mathematica because he finds alternative solutions "less complete." Only Mathematica incorporates the requisite image, logic, and mathematics functionality into one platform. Brocato teaches his doctoral students the importance of understanding formal and fundamental viewpoints, and his goal is to prepare them to collaborate across disciplines with others in the field of engineering.
Products

Starting to Demo the Wolfram Language

We’re getting closer to the first official release of the Wolfram Language—so I am starting to demo it more publicly. Here’s a short video demo I just made. It’s amazing to me how much of this is based on things I hadn’t even thought of just a few months ago. Knowledge-based programming is going to […]