Maple defines the spherical coordinates angle phi from the Z-axis to R, and the angle theta from the X-axis to R.  Many texts and literature define the angle phi the opposite way from the X-axis to R and the angle theta from the Z-axis to R.  Therefore, when I input a problem from a text, which defines phi and theta by the second definition given above, I have to remember to swap the values of phi and theta in order to get the correct answer. 

Is there...

Is it too much to expect Maple 13 to do some basic simplification that a 8th grader student could do to clean up some of the wacky expressions it outputs?  In the above, why could it not divide by "C" straight away?  And why does it leave a minus sign hanging outside the expression?  A little more development programming effort devoted...

The following is a differential equation with separable variables.  It is solved with dsolve and "manually".  Why is the dsolve solution so complicated?

Ratch

How can I get this expression, ln(1+y²/(x-1)²)+2ln(x-1) , to simplify to ln((x-1)²+y²) ?  I would think Maple should be able to do that.  Thanks, Ratch

Why doesn't Maple evaluate ln(x) assuming x<0 to ln(-x) instead of ln(x).  I know that it can evaluate negative operands into complex numbers, but sometime I would just like it to say ln(-x).  It seems to work OK for sqrt(x) assuming x<0. 

Ratch