Mathematica provides a uniquely powerful interactive environment for building up arbitrarily complex computations, under convenient interactive or programmatic control.
Components of
Mathematica Kernel — core computational engine
Front end — notebook interface system
Shift+Enter — evaluate input
Ctrl+Shift+Enter — evaluate selection in place
expr; evaluate expression, but do not print the result
% — most recent output expression (
%%,
%%%, ... for earlier outputs)
%n — nth output expression
Control+L — copy down an input line ()
F1 — bring up help about a function
?name give information about functions, symbols, etc.
Alt+. — abort a running calculation ()
— quit the kernel, keeping the front end running
Off — switch off a message
Quiet — run a computation "quietly" without outputting messages
Directory — current directory
Names — names of known symbols
— set global front end preferences
— pick the stylesheet for a notebook
— set options for notebooks
— set up additional local or remote kernels
— choose the kernel to connect to
— define scope of symbols
