Consolidate Wolfram Logins for Education with Single Sign‑On
December 22, 2020 — Kelvin Mischo, Senior Academic Key Account Manager, Academic Sales
I’ll begin this blog post by admitting that I personally have forgotten many passwords in my lifetime. If you’re like me (which I’m sure you are in this regard), you use many online tools and websites that require a login and password. We also know it’s wise practice to use a variety of passwords and to change them frequently. We hope a new feature of Mathematica Online has made this a little less daunting for you in your educational settings.
2020’s Winter Solstice Hosts the Greatest Conjunction in Nearly Four Hundred Years
December 17, 2020 — Jeffrey Bryant, Research Programmer, Wolfram|Alpha Scientific Content
On December 21, 2020, a visual astronomical spectacle will occur. The planets Jupiter and Saturn will pass so close to each other in the sky that, to the unaided eye, they will be difficult to separate. This is the closest the two planets have come in 397 years; the last time they were this close was July 16, 1623. When Jupiter and Saturn come close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth, this is known as a “great conjunction” and happens about every 20 years or so. But not all great conjunctions are as close as this one. The next great conjunction will be on November 5, 2040, and again on April 10, 2060, but the planets will be a bit over a degree apart, so not as close as the 2020 event. The next comparable event will be on March 15, 2080.
Launching Version 12.2 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica: 228 New Functions and Much More…
December 16, 2020 — Stephen Wolfram
Yet Bigger than Ever Before
When we released Version 12.1 in March of this year, I was pleased to be able to say that with its 182 new functions it was the biggest .1 release we’d ever had. But just nine months later, we’ve got an even bigger .1 release! Version 12.2, launching today, has 228 completely new functions!
Simulating Zero Gravity to Demonstrate the Dzhanibekov Effect and Other Surprising Physics Models
December 15, 2020
Jan Brugård, CEO, Wolfram MathCore
Ankit Naik, Sales Engineer, Wolfram MathCore
Per Oberg, Applications Engineer, Wolfram MathCore
Wolfram System Modeler 12.2 was just released, featuring things such as personalization of plots, new model libraries and extended GUI support for advanced modeling. One of the other additions is a new workflow for generating 3D models from 3D shapes. We will use this feature to illustrate some bizarre and counterintuitive physics.
Crop Production Forecasts and Groundwater Trends Based on the Predator–Prey Model
December 10, 2020 — Assaad Mrad, Guest Author
Ever since Thomas Robert Malthus’s book An Essay on the Principle of Population, scientists have sought to determine the limit to the growth of human population due to finite resources. One such resource is groundwater. About 40% of global food production ultimately depends on irrigation and, increasingly, the source of irrigation water is groundwater aquifers. Groundwater irrigation allows farmers to increase crop yields, maintain them in dry spells and overcome temporal mismatches between growing seasons and seasonal rain. In many parts of the world, groundwater withdrawal (or pumping from wells) exceeds recharge, leading to groundwater depletion. In these regions, the “lifespan” of groundwater aquifers is limited, putting a bound on the amount of irrigation per year and the sustainability of groundwater-based agriculture. The goal of this study was to propose a dynamical systems framework capable of explaining past trends in groundwater-based irrigation and providing forecasts of food production.
Wolfram Media Publishing: Reflecting on a Big Year and Unwrapping Plans for the Next
December 4, 2020 — Jeremy Sykes, Publishing Supervisor, Document & Media Systems
This year has been Wolfram Media’s most productive yet, with five new titles and another published in partnership. While 2020′s state and global shutdowns created unprecedented logistical challenges for the Wolfram Media team, I’m really proud of how we pulled together this year’s list, with several more books already in production for release next year.
A Virtual Face-off: Replaying the 2020 Livecoding Championship
November 25, 2020 — Jesse Friedman, Software Engineer, Engine Connectivity Engineering
In early October, by what at this point can only be a time-honored tradition, the Livecoding Championship returned in its fifth annual iteration as a special event during the 2020 Wolfram Technology Conference. As in preceding years, the championship offered top Wolfram Language programmers a chance to show off their knowledge, agility, typing speed and documentation-reading skills to an unfailingly adoring audience.
Follow along with this post by watching this recorded video of the 2020 Livecoding Championship livestream!
Distinguishing Risks of Modes of Cardiac Death in Heart Failure with Machine Learning
November 20, 2020 — Koji Maruyama, Sales Engineer
In medical fields like cardiology, the Wolfram Language continues to help researchers make discoveries and predictions. I recently coauthored a study that uses the machine learning functionality of the Wolfram Language to predict risks of deaths due to heart failure. In it, we aimed to build a classifier that is capable of distinguishing the probabilities of cardiac death caused by end-stage heart failure (HFD) and severe arrhythmic events/sudden death (ArE). What follows is a summary of the paper we published earlier this year.
Online Enrichment with Free Daily Study Groups
November 10, 2020 — Jamie Peterson, Senior Training & Online Learning Manager, Wolfram U
Students are spending countless hours online for classes this year, pushing educators to offer more engaging and worthwhile virtual content. We debuted Wolfram Daily Study Groups in early April with this in mind, and the results have far surpassed our expectations! Throughout this ongoing program, we’ve been able to keep students, professionals and lifelong learners engaged and connected in an enriching online community. With several Study Groups completed, and more in the works, we thought we’d share some of our successes so far.
How Odd Was the Full Moon on Halloween 2020? Once in a Blue Moon and a Lifetime!
November 4, 2020 — Vitaliy Kaurov, Academic Director, Wolfram Science and Innovation Initiatives
Halloween this year had a surprise up its sleeve. In rare celestial serendipity, the night of costume metamorphosis also featured a full moon, which helped to conjure the spooky mood. Because it might have been the first and last full-moon Halloween that some people witnessed in their lifetime (cue ominous music), I think it was significantly underrated. Moreover, it was the day of a blue moon (the second full moon within a month), but that is not a surprise, as any Halloween’s full moon is always a blue moon. The Moon’s color did not change, though, at least for those away from the smoke of volcanos and forest fires that are capable of turning it visibly blue. To appreciate the science and uniqueness of a full moon this Halloween, I built this visualization that tells the whole story in one picture. This is how I did it.
