As the progress of scientific discoveries are being pushed further and further with the aid of computational power, it is becoming more and more apparent that computational and programming skill are something scientists in general have to equip themselves with. Thus, starting at the implementation of Integrated Science Curriculum in 2010, Mathematica became a compulsory lesson (taught in SP2171 Discovering Science) to all SPS students. Of course, Mathematica is not the only technical computation software available in the market. There are other softwares, e.g. Matlab, LabView, Maple, etc that you have probably heard and used before. Well, you may then ask particularly, “Why Mathematica?”. Well,…

First of all, any NUS Faculty of Science students are entitled a FREE  licensed copy of Mathematica  (available for PC, Mac or Linux user) throughout their candidature. Please follow the instruction given here, to get your copy installed. Other softwares do not come FREE.

Secondly, apart from being a very good technical computation software, Mathematica supports excellent animated graphics, interactive user-interface and intuitive command lines, making it an excellent visually-engaging pedagogical tool, for instance (installation of CDF Player or Mathematica required):

Third and foremost, it’s just simply cool!!! No less no more! As you can see it being featured twice in the following TED Talks.