Using notebooks

Introduction

At the advent of Calculus two mathematicians are credited with its formalisation/invention:

• Isaac Newton

• Gottfried Leibniz

One of the differences between the approaches taken by Newton and Leibniz is their notation:

Newton denoted the derivative of a function \(f\) as:

\[Df\]

and Leibniz denoted the derivative with the now more commonly used notation:

\[\frac{df}{dx}\]

The mathematics itself is unchanged: what changes is the language/notation used to communicate it.

Similarly when giving instructions through code to a computer there are a number of notations, more commonly called languages available.

We will be using a language called Python.

Python was originally designed as a teaching language but it is now popular both in academia and in industry.

Important

In this chapter we will cover:

• Installing the specific distribution of Python on your computer.

• Using something called a Jupyter notebook to write and run Python code.

• Writing descriptive notes using markdown and \(\LaTeX\) (pronounced Lay-tech).