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Re: How do you read Mathematica?

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In article <iqa0c4$d8p$1@smc.vnet.net>,
 Christopher Young <cy56@comcast.net> wrote:

> On May 8, 2011, at 11:05 AM, Murray Eisenberg wrote:
> 
> > Actually there is, in a sense, an "official" way to pronounce any 
> > Mathematica expression: wrap it in the Speak function (using Hold as 
> > necessary) and listed to the resulting sound!
> 
> This is really neat and helpful! I got
> Speak[HoldForm[x /. x -> a]]
> 
> to work.
> 
> The only improvements might be to have "plain english", such as "x when x is 
> replaced by a" or something like that.

Intrigued by this, I tried a few random examples, e.g.

   Speak[HoldForm[x/.x->a]]
   Speak[x/.x->a]
   a=3
   Speak[x/.x->a]
   a=3//Speak
   a=3
   Speak[y=x/.x->a]

It really seems to me that this could provide a very effective teaching 
tool or gestalt for teaching, or for getting a grasp yourself on what 
Mathematica does, or "how it works".  

As a teaching drill (including self-teaching for yourself), set up a 
sequence of cells; put //Speak at the end of some of them; start 
executing them one by one using Shift-Enter, trying to predict what 
you're going to hear, or explain what you've just heard.

I at least find this remarkably effective and intriguing -- much better 
than just executing cells and looking at printed outputs.

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Re: How do you read Mathematica? Christopher Young <cy56@comcast.net> - 2011-05-10 00:20 +0000
  Re: How do you read Mathematica? AES <siegman@stanford.edu> - 2011-05-11 08:26 +0000

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