Basic Facts

Maple is a computer language; it cannot read your mind. You need to learn how to communicate with Maple.

The fundamental symbols:

assignments are made with := (plain = has a different meaning) -- think of this as giving the value of the right hand side to the name that appears on the left hand side

every command is terminated by a semi-colon ( ; ) or colon ( : ) -- with the latter the computation is done, but the result is not displayed

the double quote ( " ) refers to the result of the immediately preceding computation

Maple is case sensitive -- that is, the names x and X are different, pi and Pi are not the same thing

{ } -- set notation (mostly used in the context of plotting a bunch of functions simultaneously)

as in a .. b -- this is how Maple indicates the interval , that is, the real numbers from to

? or help -- a request to Maple for information

The standard mathematical functions are denoted by their standard names:
+ (plus) , - (minus) , * (times) , / (divided by) , ^ (raised to the power) , sin , cos , tan , abs , sqrt , ...

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In the following lines, use paper and pencil to first predict what you think Maple will do. Then execute the command and see what actually happens!

> number:= 4 * 6 + 12 / 6 - 1 ;

> power:= (-3)^3 ;

> abs( % );

> Pi ;

> v:= sin( Pi / 4 ) :

> w:= v^2 ;

> v;

> tan( -Pi / 2 ) ;

> 3 / ( 5 - sqrt( number ) ) ;

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Now enter some commands of your own! To produce the input prompt > use the [> button in the Menu Bar. Be generous with the space bar to make your commands easy to read, and to edit (modify after the fact). Go back to the tangent calculation above (remember how to reposition the cursor!) and change it to compute the tangent of .

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Next we define some functions for later use.

> f := sin( 2 * x ) ;

> g := 4 * x^2 ;

> h:= 0.25 * cos ( 8 * x ) ;

> p:= f * g ;

> q:= f * h ;

> s:= f + h ;

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