6.16.2 Greatest hits from previous weeks

6.16.2.1 How to create animated snowfall?
6.16.2.2 What does # mean in Mathematica?
6.16.2.3 Elegant operations on matrix rows and columns
6.16.2.4 Help find a bright object on Mars!
6.16.2.5 Plot, extract data to a file
6.16.2.6 Labeling individual curves in Mathematica
6.16.2.7 How to add a vertical line to a plot
6.16.2.1 How to create animated snowfall?

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=16881

Well, the title is self-explanatory. What sorts of snowfall can we generate using Mathematica? There are two options I suggest to consider: 
 
1) Continuous GIF animations with smallest possible number  ... 
[dynamic] [random] [animation] [generative-art]
 
asked by faleichik https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=219 39 votes
answered by Simon Woods https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=862 53 votes
6.16.2.2 What does # mean in Mathematica?

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=19035

I asked Mathematica to compute the following 
 
Solve[c (1-x)^2-x^(1/4) == 0, x] 
 
 
and it returned this: 
 
 
x = Root[#1^8 c^4 - 8 #1^7 c^4 + 28 #1^6 c^4 - 56 #1^5 c^4 + 70 #1^4 c^4 - 56 #1^3 c^4 + 28  ... 
[syntax] [core-language]
 
asked by ronanymous https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=5730 37 votes
answered by Dr. belisarius https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=193 63 votes
6.16.2.3 Elegant operations on matrix rows and columns

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=3069

Question 
 
The Mathematica tutorial has a section 'Basic Matrix Operations', describing operations like transpose, inverse and determinant. These operations all work on entire matrices. I am missing a  ... 
[list-manipulation] [matrix] [array] [faq]
 
asked by sjdh https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=515 179 votes
answered by Mr.Wizard https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=121 60 votes
6.16.2.4 Help find a bright object on Mars!

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=11819

In today's news, scientists found a bright object on one of Curiosity's photos (it's near the bottom of the picture below). It's a bit tricky to find - I actually spent quite some time staring at the  ... 
[image-processing]
 
asked by Victor K. https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=1351 198 votes
answered by Niki Estner https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=242 257 votes
6.16.2.5 Plot, extract data to a file

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=19859

I need to save data that Mathematica uses inside the Plot command. The format that I would like to have is: 
 
x1 y1 
x2 y2 
..... 
 
 
i.e. basically, two columns, x and y (sorted, if possible) so that I  ... 
[plotting] [export]
 
asked by molkee https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=5097 29 votes
answered by Mr.Wizard https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=121 46 votes
6.16.2.6 Labeling individual curves in Mathematica

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=4444

I need to create a plot for export and inclusion in a report. Is there a better way to label curves than PlotLegends? From what I've read and my personal experience, PlotLegends is pretty bad. 
 
Is  ... 
[plotting] [legending]
 
asked by Tianxiang Xiong https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=1041 62 votes
answered by Artes https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=184 46 votes
6.16.2.7 How to add a vertical line to a plot

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=3561

In the plot below I would like to add two vertical lines at $x = \frac{\pi}{15} \pm \frac{1}{20}$. 
How can I do that? 
 
f[x_] := (x^2 z)/((x^2 - y^2)^2 + 4 q^2 x^2) /. {y -> /15, z -> 1, q ->  ... 
[plotting]
 
asked by sjdh https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=515 56 votes
answered by Ajasja https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=745 76 votes