arguments to other functionsthere is good support for interfacing cc+and fortran code ( python program may use code written in other languages)and functions explicitly written for scalar input often work fine (without modificationalso with vector input another important thingis that python is available for free it can be downloaded from the internet and will run on most platforms readers who want to expand their scientific programming skills beyond the introductory level of the present expositionare encouraged to study the book primer on scientific programming with python [ this comprehensive book is as suitable for beginners as for professional programmersand teaches the art of programming through huge collection of dedicated examples this book is considered the primary referenceand natural extensionof the programming matters in the present book some computer science terms note thatquite oftenthe terms script and scripting are used as synonyms for program and programmingrespectively the inventor of the perl programming languagelarry walltried to explain the difference between script and program in humorous way (from perl com )suppose you went back to ada lovelace and asked her the difference between script and program she' probably look at you funnythen say something likewella script is what you give the actorsbut program is what you give the audience that ada was one sharp lady since her timewe seem to have gotten bit more confused about what we mean when we say scripting it confuses even meand ' supposed to be one of the experts there are many other widely used computer science terms to pick up writing program (or script or codeis often expressed as implementing the program executing program means running the program an algorithm is recipe for how to construct program bug is an error in programand the art of tracking down and removing bugs is called debugging simulating or simulation refers to using program to mimic processes in the real worldoften through solving differential equations that govern the physics of the processes python program with variables our first example regards programming mathematical model that predicts the position of ball thrown up in the air from newton' nd lawand by assuming negligible air resistanceone can derive mathematical model that predicts the vertical position of the ball at time from the model one gets the formula : gt where is the initial upwards velocity and is the acceleration of gravityfor which : ms is reasonable value (even if it depends on things like location on the earthwith this formula at handand when is knownyou may plug in value for time and get out the corresponding height