Cleve Barry Moler, a mathematician and professor of computer science developed MATLAB. The term MATLAB comes from “Matrix Laboratory”. Moler was a professor of mathematics and computer science for almost 20 years at several universities in the United States like the University of Michigan, the Stanford University and the University of New Mexico. MATLAB started to gain popularity and became a very useful tool for both teaching and research. Initially MATLAB was free. Jack Little, an engineer, came across MATLAB during a lecture by Cleve Moler at Stanford University in 1983. He realized the commercial potential of MATLAB and rewrote MATLAB in C with Cleve Moler and Steve Bangert. They introduced m-files which enable to write programs and store them. A number of library files were also added. In order to develop and market MATLAB they founded Math Wroks in 1984. Cleve Moler is currently the Chairman and Chief Scientist at Math Works.
The location of Math Works Headquarters in USA
Cleve Moler himself wrote about the Math Works logo in the Math Works website. This logo is present everywhere where Math Works is associated and has stood as a symbol of Math Works. It is even present in the sponsor a highway signboard on Route 9 in Natick, Massachusetts where Math Works is located. This logo is a L shaped membrane and has been used ever since the Math Works was founded as a symbol which represented the company. It was later made the official logo of Math Works and is now on every product of Math Works. Cleve Moler has described the mathematical significance of the logo. The wave equation is a model in mathematical physics that describes the movement of a disturbance through matter. If t is considered time, x the x-coordinate and y the y-coordinate with units chosen such that the speed of propagation of the disturbance through the medium is l then the partial differential equation, that is, a solution to the amplitude of the wave is given as,
∂2u/∂t2 = ∂2u/∂x2 + ∂2u/∂y2 The solution of this equation is,
u (t, x, y) = sin v (t, x) and
∂2v/∂x2 + ∂2v/∂y2 + lv = 0
l are the eigenvalues and the function v (x, y) are the eigenfunctions of vibration. A solution to the wave equation can be expressed as a linear combination of the eigenfunctions. The above logo can be obtained by just giving the command, logo.
The Math Works logo
MATLAB and Simulink are the two major products of Math Works. At present there are about 1 million users of MATLAB and there are about 1500 books on MATLAB that are available in 28 different languages. This shows how widely MATLAB is used around the world. Today MATLAB and Simulink are used widely in research and development. It has become a very important tool. MATLAB is the programming language for technical computing and a programming environment for algorithm development, data analysis, visualization and computation. Simulink on the other hand is a graphical environment for simulation and model-based design.
MATLAB or Matrix Laboratory has several advantages over the other computer languages. As the name suggests MATLAB’s basic data element on the matrix. In MATLAB even as integer is considered a matrix having a single row and a single column.
MATLAB was initially developed to give easy access to the matrix software developed by
LINPACK and EISPACK projects. These two software pieces are the most developed ones in matrix computation. MATLAB allows us to manage the variables in the workspace and also import and export data.
MATLAB is not just a programming language but it is also a programming environment.
One can perform quick operations from the command line in the command window or write detailed programs in m-file and save it for modifying it later. The command line in the command window acts just like a usual calculator having enhanced features but it does not allow us to save the commands for modifying it later. For example, we can enter mathematical expressions in the command line and get results quickly without writing programs to find the result.
MATLAB has a vast library of mathematical functions ranging from elementary functions like sin, cos, abs, etc., to sophisticated functions like inv, eig, erf etc.
Over the years MATLAB has evolved. It has become a standard software used in several introductory and advanced leek courses. It is high-level language. It allows us to create small as well as large programs. In academic institutions it has become a standard. In industries it is the tool of choice for high-productivity research, development and analysis.
MATLAB is used in the area of Maths and computation, modeling, simulation, algorithm development, data analysis and visualization of the output, graphics applications involving graphical user interface (GUI). MATLAB allows both two-dimensional and three-dimensional data visualization, image processing, animation and graphics. It includes tools for developing, managing, debugging and profiling m-files. MATLAB allows us to solve many technical computing problems very fast and with high precision.
MATLAB features number of solutions which are specific to an application. These are called toolboxes. Toolboxes allow us to apply specialized technology. Toolboxes are comprehensive collections of functions which are m-files. The MATLAB environment can be extended to solve particular classes of problems using toolboxes. A few areas in which toolboxes are available are signal processing, control systems, neural networks, fuzzy logic, wavelets, simulation, etc. The functionality of MATLAB is enhanced by the toolboxes. The toolboxes are a set of functions that provides specialized functions. For example, the statistics toolbox enables more specialized statistical manipulation. The MATLAB graphics system allows us to handle graphics. It has low-level commands that allow us to specify the look of the plot or the graphics. On the other hand MATLAB also enables us to build complete graphical user interfaces (GUI) on our MTALAB
applications. The MATLAB Application Program Interface (API) is a library that allows us to write C language and Fortran language programs that can interact with MATLAB.
Chart showing the various versions and release names of MATLAB
The various versions and release names are listed in the chart above. For example, in 8.2, R2013b, 8.2 is the version and R2013b is the release name. The first version was released in 1984 and this was MATLAB 1.0. Currently, the version available is MATLAB version 8.2 and has a release name R2013b. This is also the version we are using for writing this book.
Advertisement of the R2013b. It was released on September 5th, 2013.
A few similarities and differences between MATLAB and C.
MATLAB C
MATLAB is proprietary and we need to pay for MATLAB. C compilers are available free of cost and are open source.
Case sensitive A is different from a
Case sensitive A is different from a
Variables need not be declared at all. They can be created inside the program and used in the program. For example,
k=10;
l=10.11;
Variable type has to be declared before they can be used in the program. For example,
int k, float b, char c;
k=10;
b=10.11;
c=’d’;
There is no need to define the number of rows and columns while declaring the array.
Auto dimension.
The number of rows and columns has to be explicitly mentioned before declaring an array.
float a[10];
a=[2 4 6;8 10 12]; float a[10][10];
A print command for printing an array element in C will be,
printf(“%d”, a[11]);
In MATLAB it is possible to execute commands in the command window
This is not possible in C
% comment /*comment*/
for i=1:4:100 this MATLAB provides a solution by allowing us to write a text file containing all the commands in a proper sequence and store the file in a folder. The sequence of commands
Help is one of the most important features of MATLAB. It is very comprehensive and detailed and any information about the various features of MATLAB can be obtained from it. One can learn MATLAB form help itself. The help command gives us information about a MATLAB function. One must know the name of the MATLAB function itself in order to find the information about the function.