The Wolfram Language ( ) is a general
multi-paradigm programming language developed by
Wolfram Research. It emphasizes
symbolic computation
In mathematics and computer science, computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation, is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating mathematical expressions ...
,
functional programming
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions tha ...
, and
rule-based programming and can employ arbitrary
structures and data.
It is the programming language of the mathematical symbolic computation program
Mathematica.
History
The Wolfram Language was a part of the initial version of Mathematica in 1988.
Symbolic aspects of the engine make it a computer algebra system. The language can perform integration, differentiation,
matrix
Matrix most commonly refers to:
* ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise
** '' The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film
** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchi ...
manipulations, and solve
differential equation
In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, ...
s using a set of rules. Also, the initial version introduced the notebook model and the ability to embed sound and images, according to
Theodore Gray
Theodore W. "Theo" Gray is a co-founder of Wolfram Research, science author, and co-founder of app developer Touch Press.
Education
Theodore Gray was educated at the University of Illinois Laboratory High School. He would later graduate w ...
's patent.
Wolfram also added features for more complex tasks, such as 3D modeling.
A name was finally adopted for the language in 2013, as Wolfram Research decided to make a version of the language engine free for
Raspberry Pi users, and they needed to come up with a name for it. It was included in the recommended software bundle that the
Raspberry Pi Foundation provides for beginners, which caused some controversy due to the Wolfram language's