By Vatsal Sanjay

MIESS
What, why and Introduction Self help
how and basic assignments
• What is MATLAB? commands • Questions to try on
• Why should we • Direct application own
know MATLAB? in command • What to do next?
• How to learn window
MATLAB • Code writing in
the “EDITOR”
• Inbuilt commands
and functions
 HIGH PERFORMANCE
LANGUAGE

COMPUTATIONAL
SOFTWARE (A
MATrix DATA EXTRACTION
CALCULATOR)
LABoratory

GRAPHICS
 MATLAB stores all data in
form of matrix.

 If I enter a number say

2308. IT IS ACTUALLY A
MATRIX of index 1 x 1....
 However a 1 x 1 matrix
will behave just like a
scalar. If you write 2308*A
where A can be a 3x3
MATRIX or any matrix for
that matter.
 Especially for Mechanical
Engineering related works,
what you need is not hardcore
coding but the ability to write
programs which are concise
and effective in data
extraction, plotting , creating
graphical interface (animation
and simulations).
 NUMEROUS TOOLBARS TO MAKE
LIFE EASY
 Less worries about the Syntax.
 USER FRIENDLY
MATLAB
 I think you have spent a full
semester knowing about the
characteristics and clumsiness
of these languages.
 No offence to those who love
C++ or C. No doubt they are
the basic languages with higher
speed but lack certain factors
which are the plus points of
MATLAB.
C++/other languages
 Work space- Where all your
“Variables” are stored
 Command Window- Here
you can directly execute
commands. It is like a
POWERFUL CALCULATOR.
 Command history – it is like
your log book.
 EDITOR- if you have to
execute a set of commands;
instead of writing commands
separately, you can use
editor to write, debug and
run them. – “%” Is used to
add comments
 5+2 5*2 3+2*(4+3)

2.545*2.308/1.116 6.3-5.445 3.6^2

sqrt(5) cos(pi) pi
Variables
• NOMENCLATURE FOLLOWS SAME RULES AS
C++

NO SPACE
• Use no space in names.

CASE SENSITIVE
• A is not same as a..

Program file execution

• MATLAB COMPILER READS THE FILE LINE
BY LINE...
 • Clears the command window.
clc

• Cleans off the work space

clear/clear
all

• Closes any graphical interface or

windows other than your main window,
close/close
all like “figure” which might be opened
 Standard operations are the
simple linear algebra operations
on matrices
 AssignA as a 200x200 magic square. Take out
row 55 to 60 and column 23 to 28 as a 6x6
matrix and assign it as matrix B. Form a
matrix C equal to the standard matrix
squared of matrix B and a matrix D as the
element wise square of the matrix B.
(a) Multiply transpose of C to D and add B to
get a matrix E.
(b)Find eigen values of matrix E and its (c)
determinant and further its (d) inverse.
MATLAB indices start with
“1” not “0”...

To call an element of the

matrix, you can use
subscripts or indices.
 Every time you press the “enter” key after
writing a command, MATLAB prints the
results in command window... You can skip
this by using a semicolon. MATLAB does the
computation but doesn’t display the result.
 Notethat inv(A)*B
and A\B are the
same if A is a
square matrix.
A\B solves the
equation using
GAUSS elimination
method.
 X=
linspace(0,2*pi,4);
 Y=(sin(X)).^2;
 plot (X,Y)
 WELL! that didn’t
really go as
expected... Any
guess what this
might be the case?
 X=
linspace(0,2*pi,1000
);
 Y= (sin(X)).^2;
 Plot(X,Y);
 If you know the
interval between
consecutive x
values; instead of
linspace you can use
simple vector X and Y must have the same
initialisation that is dimension for plotting
X= 0:0.0001:2*pi;
 clc
clear all
x=5;
format long
For n=1:1:50
x=sqrt(1+x);
plot (n,x,'d')
hold on
THERE IS ANOTHER WAY TO SOLVE THIS... In
end command window type
hold on syms x
plot([0,0],[0,5],'k- X= solve(x-sqrt(1+x)==0,x)
',[0,10],[0,0],'k-') In this case syms represents symbolic
representation. Answer obtained this way are
disp (x)
symbols and are usually in fraction form
P=[1 -1 -1];
R=roots(P)
squaring adds an extra root
help is the most useful command if you
want to learn MATLAB.

• Suppose if you want to know what does the word

“sin” do in MATLAB; enter help sin in the command
window.

Along with the description about the

asked work, it also lists related
commands alongside
 Apart from using the help command you can always
rely on google.
 No book or course can make you proficient with
MATLAB or anything for that matter unless you
yourself practice it and explore things.
 So explore MATLAB... Try solving your class problems
using MATLAB. You got a question, an idea.. Simply
log on to the MATLAB window and try it out. For eg if
you learn say gauss elimination method to solve set
of linear equations, come back home; open MATLAB
and see how you can write a code for that.
 www.mathworks.in / in.mathworks.com are be the
places you would like to visit if you have how this is
done type of questions.
 help functional_handle
 help fzero
 help diff
 help gradient
 help integrate
 help ode45
 help contour
 help fit