Introductory Sage Exercise



Due Monday, January 17, 2011

I recommend doing this exercise in pairs. Ideally each pair should include at least one person who took Calc I last term, and thus has worked with sage a little bit before. Please send me only one worksheet for the pair. Also, I'd suggest taking turns typing on sage so you each get a chance to practice.

Sage is a very powerful program that can do all sorts of mathematics. We will be using it via its web notebook interface. This means that the actual sage program will be running on a computer far away, and that you will talk to that computer via your web browser. You can thus use sage on any computer that has a web browser and an internet connection. There is nothing to download.


  1. First you will need to make yourself an account on one of the sage notebook servers. There are several to choose from. I recommend one of the following: Go to either of these sites and follow the directions to make an account.



  2. Next you should download the following sage worksheet: Sage_Intro and save it on your computer somewhere.



  3. Then go to back to the web page where you just made yourself a sage account. Toward the top left of the page there should be an option for uploading a worksheet. Do so, and choose the worksheet that you just downloaded in the previous step.

  4. The worksheet then, in theory, should be self-explanatory. I've given you a bunch of examples to try out and then there are a few things for you to try on your own. I think it should work ok.

Dale and Kate both could provide help with sage if needed. I'm also happy to field questions via email. I expect this to take around one to 1.5 hours to work through. If it takes much longer than that, stop. If a few things on sage don't work perfectly for you, don't worry about it. And if this turns out to be a disaster, don't panic. We can go over things when I'm back.