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Re: Learning Mathematica with neat projects

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I'm happy you've joined our community here, and I certainly wish you well on
your many experiments.  I wanted to hone in on one thing from your last email
which might help...

> For some reason I can't
> explain, you can't just click on the "curve stitch" link on the index
> page because it just shows the notebook source in the browser.

The reason for this is because your web server is reporting the MIME type of the
notebook as text/plain.  If you can tweak the web server to report .nb files as
application/vnd.wolfram.mathematica instead, then the notebook will load
directly in the plugin, if it's installed, or go through the browser's download
mechanism if it's not.

Sincerely,

John Fultz
jfultz@wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.


On Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:39:48 -0400 (EDT), Sol Lederman wrote:
> Hello, Everyone.
>
> I want to thank each of you who has shown me simple and clever ways to
> use Mathematica with my dots and lines projects. As a programmer for over
> 30 years I'm humbled at how challenging this stuff can be and very
> grateful to those of you who have reached out to help me to start getting
> my bearings.
>
> You might be interested to know that there's a bigger picture to what I'm
> trying to do than just learn Mathematica for my own edification. I've
> been a math blogger for 3 1/2 years at WildAboutMath.com. I've also led a
> number of hands-on math circles with adults and kids and I enjoy leading
> students to having Aha! experiences of enjoying and really understanding
> the foundations of math. I'm shifting my focus from Wild About Math! to a
> new blog, PlayingWithMathematica.com, where I can help folks who enjoy
> Math but who are new to Mathematica to have Aha! experiences. I'm aiming
> to create notebooks that kids (and anyone) can use to learn Mathematica
> and to play with mathematical ideas in the context of developing neat
> projects.
>
> I've developed one notebook so far, at
> http://playingwithmathematica.com/notebooks/. (For some reason I can't
> explain, you can't just click on the "curve stitch" link on the index
> page because it just shows the notebook source in the browser. So, you
> have to download the notebook and then open it. This first notebook is a
> good illustration of how I aim to guide students in math + Mathematica +
> neat projects. (I do plan to clean up the layout and style of the
> notebook and of the writing a bit before promoting it.)
>
> Before I can create a bunch of these educational notebooks I've got the
> steep learning curve to overcome. I've been reading lots of documentation
> and playing with Mathematica quite a bit and what I'm finding is that
> most of the Mathematica documentation (including source code from the
> demonstrations) is either so specific that I can't see how to use it
> outside of the context of the very specific example or, in the case of
> the demonstrations, is incomprehensible to beginners like me.
>
> What I'm realizing is that I'd love to collaborate with Mathematica
> experts in this group to get help in coding some applications for the
> Playing with Mathematica site. Wolfram is aware of what I'm doing, they
> donated a license to me for this project and they blessed the use of
> "Mathematica" in the URL. I would still write the explanatory material
> and every collaborator would be acknowledged on the site and in every
> notebook that he or she made significant contributions to.
>
> I have lots of ideas for interesting projects but not the skill (right
> now) to implement them. The next project I'd like to do is a Galton board
> as illustrated here:
> http://www.ms.uky.edu/~mai/java/stat/GaltonMachine.html. (The disks
> exercise is a way of warming up to the project.) Yes, there already exist
> Galton board demos in Mathematica but I like this particular style. The
> challenge is not just to code the design but to code it in such a way
> that uses simple Mathematica constructs that are easy to break into small
> pieces so that students can experience success and understanding along
> the way, and that are easy to explain to folks new to Mathematica.
>
> If you would be interested in helping this cause I, and many other
> beginners, would greatly appreciate it. Your involvement could be as
> little as helping to get me unstuck and showing me ways of doing things
> to as big as writing demonstration apps, which you could also post to the
> Mathematica Demonstrations site.
>
> Thanks very much.
>
> Sol

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Re: Learning Mathematica with neat projects John Fultz <jfultz@wolfram.com> - 2011-04-27 11:24 +0000

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