The mathematical operations we have discussed so far are exact. Given precise input, their results are exact formulas. In many situations, however, you do not need an exact ...

Much of what Mathematica does revolves around manipulating structured expressions. But you can also use Mathematica as a system for handling unstructured strings of text. ...

A symmetric polynomial in variables x_1,…,x_n is a polynomial that is invariant under arbitrary permutations of x_1,…,x_n. Polynomials are called elementary symmetric ...

PermutationProduct[a, b, c] gives the product of permutations a, b, c.

Refine[expr, assum] gives the form of expr that would be obtained if symbols in it were replaced by explicit numerical expressions satisfying the assumptions assum. ...

lhs := rhs assigns rhs to be the delayed value of lhs. rhs is maintained in an unevaluated form. When lhs appears, it is replaced by rhs, evaluated afresh each time.

In a statement like x^4+x^2>0, Mathematica treats the variable x as having a definite, though unspecified, value. Sometimes, however, it is useful to be able to make ...

Mathematica provides a large number of options for cells. All of these options can be accessed through the Option Inspector menu item in the front end. They can be set either ...

Files and pipes are both examples of general Mathematica objects known as streams. A stream in Mathematica is a source of input or output. There are many operations that you ...

e_1 && e_2 && ... is the logical AND function. It evaluates its arguments in order, giving False immediately if any of them are False, and True if they are all True.