IS: Wolfram Programs on the Raspberry (52.html)


Raspberry Logo
Raspberry Logo.


The Wolfram programming language comes bundled with the Raspbian Operating System for free. This programming language was created by Stephen Wolfram, a brilliant Computer Scientist born around 1950. The Wolfram programming language is a departure from other programming languages. It can be used interpretively and is easy to learn. It includes more mathematical functions and constructs than are known by most engineers. It is very simple to learn and functions very well on a Linux PC such as the Raspberry. Some very small programming examples are available as Programming Snippets below. This language can easily be used to write and read to and from the GPIO interface on the Raspberry Pi. The Wolfram language can easily be learned by children, engineers and scientists. Wolfram is different from BASIC, but is more powerful and easier to learn. Wolfram reads directly from web pages and can easily read and write from text files in the user's directory under Debian Linux.

Wolfram (also known as Mathematica or M) is available as a no-cost math engine at WolframAlpha. This little-known web site permits easy (or complex) manipulation of much world data. Some of the examples are mind-boggling. Persons with scientific minds are encouraged to learn the new programming constucts that permit impressive manipulation of large amounts of data already available at the WolframAlpha site.

This programming language even permits you to easily manipulate formulas. Division by infinity produces an answer of 0, not an Error Situation.

A simple Raspberry GPIO circuit is shown below. A single Red LED connected to GPIO pin 17 and a simple push-button input is connected to GPIO pin 4.


Stephan Wolfram
Stephan Wolfram



A Simple Raspberry GPIO circuit
A Simple Raspberry GPIO circuit



Single line to turn on the LEDs
Building in as much automation as possible has been a longstanding principle of mine
for the Wolfram Language. And when it comes to external devices, this means consistently
curating properties of devices, and then setting up general symbolic functions for interacting
with them. Here's how one would take this whole technology stack and use it to switch on LEDs
by setting voltages on GPIO pins:



simple electronic circuit
The simple electronic circuit controlled by the statement to the left.


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Date: 2015 C Mar 03
WebMaster: David KC Cole
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