On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 8:20 AM, michel paul <mpaul...@gmail.com> wrote: > SAGE is awesome. I highly recommend it. Recently I've been looking at it > more intently with the idea of using in math classes. >
We've been hoping to get the Sage folks from Seattle to present at PPUG Portland. One reason I encourage core Python for more elementary courses is I'm wanting to open a window into the language itself, not an application written in that language. "Staying close to the metal" sounds funny in this context, given it's a VHLL. That being said, Sage encourages writing in core Python, then working the API for graphics. I recommend creating a free user account and testing it over the web by pulling up some already published activities e.g.: v2 of three famous plots of chaos http://www.sagenb.org/home/pub/20/ In terms of selling your department on the relevance of Python to math learning, I think Sage is a significant asset, something to show and tell about. Here's all you need to plot a Mandelbrot set: #Mandelbrot set: the final plot is a subset of the complex plane; #the color at point c is porportional to the number of iterations that #the discrete dynamical system z->z^2+c takes to leave a circle around #the origin when z0=0 N=int(200) #resolution of the plot L=int(50) #limits the number of iterations x0=float(-2); x1=float(1); y0=float(-1.5); y1=float(1.5) #boundary of the region plotted R=float(3) #stop after leaving the circle of radius R zero = int(0) m=matrix(N,N) for i in range(N): for k in range(N): c=complex(x0+i*(x1-x0)/N, y0+k*(y1-y0)/N) z=zero h=zero while (h<L) and (abs(z)<R): z=z*z+c h+=1 m[i,k]=h matrix_plot(m, cmap='hsv') That's a lot shorter than my implementation with PIL: http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/fractals.html http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/lorentz.html There's also Lorentz Attractor and Feigenbaum diagram, woo hoo! Kirby _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
