Using Mathematica for calculus
Mathematica is what Wolfram Alpha is based on (You may be familiar from Math 1A...)
There is very powerful built-in differentiation and integration of expressions:
Integrate can be used to compute indefinite integrals
Providing bounds of integration in the form of a list (just like in plotting) can be used to compute definite integrals
Numerical (approximate results) can be obtained using the N function
If we want to be fancy, we can use mathematical notation in our code:
More calculus and series
Mathematica can easily compute partial and repeated derivatives
Finite and infinite sums can be computed using Sum
Differential equations
Mathematica can find analytical solutions to many differential equations, both initial value problems and boundary value problems
The function DSolve looks for solutions to differential equations
We did not specify an initial condition, so the solution has a constant. Specifying the initial condition eliminates the constant
We can solve a boundary value problem: