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I can imagine this in the science books of the future. I usually check with a few cases to see if I understand the subject correctly, but sometimes I have enoug

I can imagine this in the science books of the future. I usually check with a few cases to see if I understand the subject correctly, but sometimes I have enough samples to test. This would be great: the student can see the default example, learn the subject and then try to check if he understood it correctly seeing how it behaves changing the parameters!

_delirium 13y ago
In a physics course I took some years ago, we used Mathematica notebooks for that. The professor had written out explanations of a few subjects we were studying in the style of tutorial notes or a paper handout, but within Mathematica so you could change the parameters and see updates in real time.
- jjsz 13y ago
  So which one do you recommend for a first year CS student Mathematica or Tangle?
  - count 13y ago
    Pedagogy aside, Mathematica will serve them better from a 'other people use this' perspective over the years.
  - thauck 13y ago
    At this point, I might argue for IPython Notebook.
    - jjsz 13y ago
      The question I was going to make has been asked here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17483271/is-there-a-way-to-create-interactive-plots-a-la-d3-in-ipython-notebooks http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17483271/is-there-a-way-t...
hsparikh 13y ago
Precisely. In physics, testing extreme cases and boundary conditions is one of the first ways to get a better understanding of a system. Tangle can be a great tool to empower learners to do this visually.
nileshtrivedi 13y ago
I am currently working on interactive 2-d physics simulation in the browser with much the same ideas. On the desktop we have apps like KDE Step but I haven't found anything similar for the web. Currently I have particles,disks and boxes working with gravitation, coulomb and custom-defined forces. I also implemented Runge-Kutta method of integration instead of horribly inaccurate Euler's method. You can manipulate the objects, their parameters and laws even while the simulation is running. I need to add basic collision detection and things like springs, links, and linear/angular motors and embedding the simulation as a widget before polishing it up and releasing. Email me in case this sounds interesting and you would like to stay updated.

_delirium 13y ago

In a physics course I took some years ago, we used Mathematica notebooks for that. The professor had written out explanations of a few subjects we were studying in the style of tutorial notes or a paper handout, but within Mathematica so you could change the parameters and see updates in real time.

jjsz 13y ago
So which one do you recommend for a first year CS student Mathematica or Tangle?
- count 13y ago
  Pedagogy aside, Mathematica will serve them better from a 'other people use this' perspective over the years.
- thauck 13y ago
  At this point, I might argue for IPython Notebook.
  - jjsz 13y ago
    The question I was going to make has been asked here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17483271/is-there-a-way-to-create-interactive-plots-a-la-d3-in-ipython-notebooks http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17483271/is-there-a-way-t...

hsparikh 13y ago

Precisely. In physics, testing extreme cases and boundary conditions is one of the first ways to get a better understanding of a system. Tangle can be a great tool to empower learners to do this visually.

nileshtrivedi 13y ago

I am currently working on interactive 2-d physics simulation in the browser with much the same ideas. On the desktop we have apps like KDE Step but I haven't found anything similar for the web. Currently I have particles,disks and boxes working with gravitation, coulomb and custom-defined forces. I also implemented Runge-Kutta method of integration instead of horribly inaccurate Euler's method. You can manipulate the objects, their parameters and laws even while the simulation is running. I need to add basic collision detection and things like springs, links, and linear/angular motors and embedding the simulation as a widget before polishing it up and releasing. Email me in case this sounds interesting and you would like to stay updated.