Introduction to Computing and Plotting

With just a few mouse clicks, you can perform basic and complex mathematical computations right in your document. In Scientific Notebook, you can quickly perform the symbolic computations fundamental to algebra, trigonometry, and calculus—evaluating, factoring, combining, expanding, and simplifying terms and expressions containing integers, fractions, and real and complex numbers. You can also perform integration, differentiation, matrix and vector operations, standard deviations, and many other more complex computations involved in calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, and statistics.

You can manipulate the results of your computations, using them to perform additional computations or plotting the results. And you can plot additional items by dragging them onto an existing plot. You can build a series of expressions that show a step-by-step approach to a problem solution by computing in place—performing computations within an expression, rather than on an entire expression. You can perform computations on the mathematics you enter in Scientific Notebook or on data files you import from your graphing calculator. Use the Settings command on the Maple menu to toggle between a full and a partial menu of computational commands.

This is all you have to do:


$\blacktriangleright$    To perform a computation or plot a graph

  1. Enter a mathematical expression.

  2. With the insertion point in or at the immediate right of the expression, choose the command you want from the Maple menu or the Compute toolbar: dtbpF2.7882in1.0931in0ptcomputebar.wmf

While the computation takes place, the program displays the Maple pointer. Then, the program inserts the answer in your document. Most computations are fast, but some take several minutes.

$\blacktriangleright$    To stop a computation and return to your Scientific Notebook document