Quick, what numbers x satisfy:

abs( x-2 ) < 1

How does Maple answer this?

solve( abs( x-2 ) < 1, x );
                         RealRange(Open(0), Open(2))

Now, change the RHS to 1. (floating-point 1):

solve( abs(x-1) < 1., x );
           RealRange(1., Open(2.)), RealRange(Open(0.), Open(1.))

Of course, these two intervals can be combined to the one interval. Maple 10 did not have this problem. (I will explain what Maple 11 is doing later, I want the next paragraph to appear in the truncated version of this post.) This issue is important for those of us trying to use Maple in the classroom. While it's not difficult to explain what is going on, the point is that this is not the mathematics I am trying to teach and these issues are a distraction.

Run the following two pieces of code plot(3*arctan((-1+x)*x/(-2+x))/x, x = 0 .. 1) int(3*arctan((-1+x)*x/(-2+x))/x, x = 0 .. 1) There seems to be a bug in "int" I am using Maple 10.

I've submitted to Maplesoft some suggestions for Help pages in Maple 11.01. A copy is online, and comments on it would be welcomed: View 4119_HelpSuggestions--1101.mw on MapleNet or Download 4119_HelpSuggestions--1101.mw
View file details Note that the document is “live”—i.e. if the cursor is on an italicized word (preceded by “?”), and you press Enter, then the Help page comes up.

Can anyone explain how to write a 10 consecutive sequence of odd x^3 natural numbers?

The functionality to extend and augment the context-sensitive menus is quite nice. I especially like the submodule ContextMenu:-Test whose exports allow one to programmatically test the results and new menus.

But what about installing menus with items whose type checks relate to locals?

Here's a simple example.

> newCM:=ContextMenu:-New():
> newCM[Entries][Add]("local to global", "convert(%EXPR,`global`)", `local`):
> newCM[Entries...

Hi, again. Another applied problem arose today which requires me to compute all the roots of a polynomial with real coefficients. The degree needs to be left arbitrary. I only see vague references on the internet to the very abstract, symbolic "formula" (if one wishes to call it that) for all the roots of a polynomial in terms of siegel (siegal? seagel?) elliptic modular functions. No one ever seems to try to use it. The only person I know who ever wrote out the formula was Hiroshi Umemura, professor from Nagoya University in Japan. I actually contacted him once, back in 1994. But

What does a return statement mean within a module's body, but not within ModuleApply, ModuleLoad, or ModuleUnload procedures?

Is the disappearance of the return line, and the u:=3 line that follows it, some sort of automatic simplification? I'm not even sure what such a return statement is supposed to mean, in a module's body but not in ModuleApply et al.

> module() local u; u:=2; return; u:=3; end:
> convert(%,string);
"module () local u; u := 2; end module"

When I mention automatic simplification here I mean things like the disappearance of the if..then..fi for the following procedure creation. I also wonder where in the help-pages that simplification is documented.

I need help with a problem. There are 24 square tables, but the tables must be formed as rectangles. i.e. two together. How many combinations can be made with the 24 tables. What is the maximim number of people to sit at the tables using what combination What is the least number of people to sit at the tables using what combination.

Consider the following:

restart;
abs(x)/x;
                                          |x|
                                          ---
                                           x 
simplify( (1) );
                                          |x|
                                          ---
                                           x 
simplify( (1) ) assuming x>0;  # OK
                                           1
simplify( (1) ) assuming x=0;  # OK
                                           0
simplify( (1) ) assuming x>=0; # Uh-oh
                                           1

Simplification of trigonometric expressions is one area where computer algebra systems have yet to catch up with human experience. Experienced Maple users know that Maple prefers powers of cosine to powers of sine and powers of secant to powers of tangent. This is adequate for many situations. There are a variety of tools available within Maple that can be used to put expressions into another form. One example is convert( ..., sincos ). This conversion replace all trigonometric terms with an equivalent term involving only sine and cosine (and all hyperbolic terms with equivalent terms involving only sinh and cosh). Until now, there has been no analog for secant and tangent.

Hi I wonder if anyone knows of any maple code to generate polynomials with algebraic constants. eg an order 1 poly would be: a+b*x, order 2: a+b*x+c*x^2, order 3: a+b*x+c*x^2+d*x^3, ...... etc what i'm looking for is a procedure where i input the order, eg 3, and it spits out a+b*x+c*x^2+d*x^3 thanks in advance

I bought the student version of Maple 11 last week, loaded it onto a Windows Vista machine, and used it for a few days. I had an occasional crash to the desktop, which became frustrating. Upon discovery there was a specific Vista update, I downloaded that, uninstalled the original version, installed the new one and activated it. Now, Maple does not run. If I try to start it nothing happens. No error message, nothing. This occurs regardless of how I try to start it (e.g. "Run as administrator" or not, with UAC on or off). If I try to reinstall Maple, I get the message telling me to first uninstall the previous version, but the uninstaller has the same problem as Maple itself...it will not run.

I need help. A homework problem superimposes a graph atop a DE. What am I doing wrong: _____________ plot1 := phaseportrait(eqn,y(x), x=-0.25..0.25, [[y(-1/2)=2],[y(3/2)=0]],titlefont=[TIMES,ROMAN,18],title=`Sec 2.1 #17`, color=grey, linecolor=[red,blue]): plot2 := (1/2)*x^2: display([plot1,plot2]); Error, (in DEtools/phaseportrait) the 'number' option must be specified before initial conditions Error, (in plots:-display) expecting plot structures but received: [plot1, (1/2)*x^2] _____________

I had the pleasure of visiting Oxford while on vacation in England. I regret that I did not get a chance to visit the NAG headquarters there, but that thought gave me the idea for this next blog entry. The Optimization package for local optimization uses as its underlying engine the NAG E04 optimization suite. It is possible to use the Optimization package without knowing the internal workings of the commands. However, for those of you who are interested in such details, it is possible to get more information. If you set infolevel[Optimization] to 2 or higher, the names of the NAG routines (e.g. E04UCA) are displayed. It is useful to set the infolevel value in any case, as the messages provide valuable information about how the computation is proceeding.