MATHPROGWEB.TEX

ME 353 M.M. Yovanovich

COMPUTER ALGEBRA SYSTEMS

Computer Algebra Systems or Symb olic Mathematics Software Packages have b een de-

velop ed over the past 25 years. The b est known packages are , ,

MATHEMATICA, , MATHSCRIBE, MuMATH, and DERIVE, RE-

DUCE, SMP. These packages will b e denoted by MATHPROG in this brief overview.

MATHPROG tie together many disparate mathematical capabilities in one package.

MATHPROG is at once a , a collection of numerical routines, and

a mathematical graphics package. All the mathematics are accessed by a single command

language and programming language, and the entire user interaction takes place in a uniform

graphical environment.

MATHPROG can b e used to do analytical work, to manipulate algebraic expressions,

to di erentiate and integrate, solve linear and nonlinear ordinary di erential equations ana-

lytically or numerically, display results graphically, and much more. For example MATH-

PROG suchasMACSYMA, MAPLE, MATHEMATICA, MATHCAD, MATLAB

as well as Spread Sheets suchas EXCEL supp ort sp ecial functions such as Airy, Bessel, er-

ror, complementary error, b eta and gamma, Legendre, complete and incomplete elliptic

integrals, and others. These are very imp ortant when dealing with solutions to ordinary and

partial di erential equations.

MATHPROG can b e used to write pro cedural programs suchas BASIC, FORTRAN,

PASCAL, etc to p erform sp eci c tasks. When used prop erly MATHPROG can b e a

powerful to ol to increase ones pro ductivity and to enable one to address new problems.

MAPLE V release 4 is a recently develop ed system written in C in order to achieve

greater p ortablilty and sp eed. MAPLE runs on a large range of machines. It is avail-

able from Waterlo o Maple Software, 450 Philip Street, Waterlo o, Ontario, N2L 5JL, email:

[email protected].

MAPLE V release 4 is available through WATSTAR.