Learning Guide Learning Guide

2 • Chapter 1: Introduction to Maplecolleges, and universities have revitalized traditional curricula by introducingproblems and exercises that use Maple’s interactive mathematics.Students can concentrate on important concepts, rather than tedious algebraicmanipulations.The way in which you use Maple is in some aspects personal anddependent on your needs, but two modes are particularly prevalent.The first mode is as an interactive problem-solving environment.When you work on a problem in a traditional manner, attempting aparticular solution method can take hours and many pages of paper.Maple allows you to undertake much larger problems and eliminates yourmechanical errors. The interface provides documentation of the steps involvedin finding your result. It allows you to easily modify a step or inserta new one in your solution method. With minimal effort you can computethe new result. Whether you are developing a new mathematical modelor analyzing a financial strategy, you can learn a great deal about theproblem easily and efficiently.The second mode in which you can use Maple is as a system forgenerating technical documents. You can create interactive structureddocuments that contain mathematics in which you can change an equationand update the solution automatically. Maple’s natural mathematicallanguage allows easy entry of equations. You also can compute and displayplots. In addition, you can structure your documents by using moderntools such as styles, outlining, and hyperlinks, creating documents thatare not only clear and easy to use, but easy to maintain. Since componentsof worksheets are directly associated with the structure of the document,you can easily translate your work to other formats, such as HTML, RTF,L A TEX, and XML.Many types of documents can benefit from the features of Maple’sworksheets. These facilities save you a great deal of effort if you are writinga report or a mathematical book. They are also appropriate for creatingand displaying presentations and lectures. For example, outlining allowsyou to collapse sections to hide regions that contain distracting detail.Styles identify keywords and headings. Hyperlinks allow you to createlive references that take the reader directly to pages containing relatedinformation. Above all, the interactive nature of Maple allows you to computeresults and answer questions during presentations. You can clearlyand effectively demonstrate why a seemingly acceptable solution methodis inappropriate, or why a particular modification to a manufacturingprocess would lead to loss or profit.This book is your introduction to Maple. It systematically discussesimportant concepts and builds a framework of knowledge that guides you