Some Notation used in the Maple computer-algebra program

	Prof. Jonathan L.F. King, Mathematics Dept, University of Florida



  For Maple, `#' is the comment character, `>' is Maple's prompt, and
the doublequote character `"' means `the result of the previous
computation'.  Character `*' is used to indicate multiplication.  So if
letters are written together, they form a single variable, e.g., TTRZx
is a single variable, and TT*TRx is the product of two variables.

  Assignment is ":=" whereas "=" asserts equality.  Thus
	x  :=  y = 2*y + 1 ;
says to assign to x the value "y=2*y + 1", that is, the eqn "y=2*y + 1".
Usually, you would not use "x" to name an equation, but would use a more
descriptive name, e.g,
	eqn  :=  y = 2*y + 1 ;
Also, once having done an assignment, say x := 3, you can later make x
"unassigned" by the statment
	x := 'x' ;

  A Maple statement ends with either ";" or ":".  In both cases, this
causes the stmt to be evaluated.  The result of evaluation is printed
(on the screen) IFF the stmt ends with ";".

  Maple represents vectors with brackets, e.g, [1,2,3].

  Maple uses E for the base of natural logarithm (e), and uses Pi for
the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

  Also:
abs()	computes absolute value.
exp()	is the usual exponential function.
eval()	forces evaluation of its argument.  To force Maple
	to evaluate each *part* of an expression "expr", use "map(eval,expr)".
evalf()	does a numerical *approximation* of its argument.
evalm()	evaluates vector operations.
norm( ,2)	computes the standard Euclidean norm.

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