# Any good MATLAB resources on the web?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-matlab-resources-on-the-web/419696>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 19, 2007, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-matlab-resources-on-the-web/419696 "2007-09-19T02:35:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-matlab-resources-on-the-web/419696/1 "2007-09-19T02:35:19Z")

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I’ve used MATLAB a few times several years ago in my undergrad days, and don’t remember a damn thing. I have what is essentially a Fourier series for mass diffusion that I solved from a PDE and given boundary conditions, and I just need to get a time value for a given x-value and a final mass concentration value.

I could work it out by hand _if I really had to_ using just the first few terms in the series, but it would be better to be able to use lots of terms, like MATLAB can, and a plot is also desirable, and that’s harder to do by hand.

Is there a good site that goes through doing this step-by-step? Or maybe a downloadable manual/PDF?

If it helps, the equation is:  
C=1.5-Σ(n-\>∞)[2.6/nπ\*(1+(-1)sup[/sup])\*sin(100nπx)]

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2007, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-matlab-resources-on-the-web/419696/2 "2007-09-19T03:01:37Z")

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[QUOTE=bouv]  
I’ve used MATLAB a few times several years ago in my undergrad days, and don’t remember a damn thing. I have what is essentially a Fourier series for mass diffusion that I solved from a PDE and given boundary conditions, and I just need to get a time value for a given x-value and a final mass concentration value.

I could work it out by hand _if I really had to_ using just the first few terms in the series, but it would be better to be able to use lots of terms, like MATLAB can, and a plot is also desirable, and that’s harder to do by hand.

Is there a good site that goes through doing this step-by-step? Or maybe a downloadable manual/PDF?

If it helps, the equation is:  
C=1.5-Σ(n-\>∞)[2.6/nπ\*(1+(-1)sup[/sup])\*sin(100nπx)]  
[/QUOTE]

well, a good place to start is the web site:  
[http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/](http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/)

Octave is an open source version if you want to go that route.