Mathcad – what is it

A fancy calculator

A problem solving tool

A unit converter

An equation writer

We will explore pieces of all of these

Mathcad is a Windows type program

Menu bar across the top

Toolbars & buttons in other rows

Many of the tool palettes “float”

Main use of Mathcad is for mathematical calculations (duh!)

Write formulae using variables & numbers & math symbols

f x 0

x

ye2y

d4

12

6

7

9

1

11

8

8

X1

X2

X3

1100

1250

2000

Mathcad has a lot of pre-defined names that are very useful:

c The speed of lightg Acceleration due to gravity

And a host of units, so many unit conversions are done automagically:

m meterft ftkg kilogramlb pound

Mathcad Variable Names

A string of characters (including numbers and some“special” characters (e.g. #, %, _, and a few more)

Cannot start with a number

Capitalization & spelling count!!! A1 is different from a1

Be careful not to conflict with predefined name(e.g. g = acceleration due to gravity, m = meter,etc. -- which we will discuss later)

Be careful that variables and functions have different names

Subscripts

The “.” (period) starts a text subscript, which really is part of the variable name A1 is different from A1

The “[“ indicates an array subscript. Thus A1 indicates an element in the array A (it is the second element, as array subscripts start with 0 by default in Mathcad)

And, unfortunately, the two are very difficult to tell apart when you just look at them. Avoid the superscript tool on the tool bar!

To build equations, Mathcad has three or four types of equal signs

Need to keep them straight and know when to use each!!!!

Assignment: Type a “:” and see “:=“

Assigns value on right side to variable on left

A1 5

Evaluation: Type a “=“ and see a “=“

Evaluates expression on left and displays on right

A1 5

Boolean Equal: Type a “ctrl = “ and see a bold = sign

Indicates a logical equivalence between the left and right sides (Don’t worry about the details of this, but watch for its use.)

0 x2

1

This is tough to see, but in Mcad the = sign is bold.Main use is in solving equations.

Equivalenceor replacement:

Type a “~” and see three horizontal lines

Causes expression on left to be replaced by expression on right everywhere in the worksheet

A y2

3

Would cause all occurrences of “A” to be replaced byy2 + 3

We won’t use this one, but here for completeness

And something to remember:

Mathcad evaluates the worksheet from left to right and top to bottom every time the worksheet is evaluated.

(unless you set the option to manual recalculation)

Do some of the tutorials

ClickHelp

TutorialsGetting Started Primers

doEntering Math Expressions

thruCalculating with Variables.