Applications

Abstract

The development of large-scale Mathematica programming projects is discussed and illustrated in this chapter. One of the most popular computer programs—the Game of Life—is used to illustrate functional and rule-based programming techniques to create programs that are both efficient and elegant. The random walk model is used to model random processes in physics, chemistry, biology, materials engineering, and economics. It is used here to demonstrate how Mathematica programs can be written, run, and analyzed both visually and numerically. A common problem in programming is reading and interpreting-parsing— a user’s input. (For example, Mathematica does this each time you evaluate an expression.) The method of “recursive descent parsing” is illustrated by presenting the implementation of the language PDL, a language for describing simple pictures consisting of squares, circles, rectangles, and ovals.