MAPLE COURSE

MAPLE COURSE [1 Credit]

IMPORTANT!!!!!!
MAPLE is about to pull the plug on the FREE DOWNLOAD of maple for students. DOWNLOAD NOW before it is too late!!! OTHERWISE, you have to shell out $120 when the new arrangement comes into effect.

Instructor:

Dr.Garvan, LIT 483
Office phone: 392-0281 extn 248
Email: frank@math.ufl.edu

Sections:

Section 1614, Thursday 4th period, MAT118 (for first class), LIT 425
Section 0121, Thursday 3rd period, LIT221 (for first class), LIT 425

This is the third time this course has been offered. The main goal of the course is to learn how to effectively use MAPLE - an interactive computer algebra system that was designed for mathematical and symbolic computing.

Maple has many strengths:

it can do exact integer computation,
it can do numerical computation to an practically desired accuracy,
it can do symbolic computation,
it comes with many built-in functions and packages designed for a variety of mathematical tasks,
it has facilities for doing 2- and 3-dimension plotting and animation,
it has a worksheet-based interface,
it has facilities for making technical documents,
Maple is also a simple programming language and finally
Maple is very affordable - in fact Students and Faculty at UF can download Maple for free! It is also included on the UF SOFTWARE CD which is only $3.00!!

Prerequisites:

No programming experience will be assumed, however it is desirable that the student have an interest in computing. This semester it will be assumed that the student has completed the 2nd semester of calculus.

Overview:

The background theme for this semester will be Calculus 3. Many of the applications we will study will come from material in Calculus 3. We will start with basics. We will study in depth Maple's 2- and 3-dimensional plotting facilities since this will be quite useful for the Calculus 3 students. We will learn how to use Maple in problem solving especially with problems that would be tedious to do by hand. We will also encounter the experimental side of Mathematics - using Maple to produce data and look for patterns. We learn how to write simple Maple programs and use them in problem solving.

Instruction format and assignments:

All classes will be conducted in the Computer Lab. There will be very little lecturing. A lab assignment will be given each week which will be due the following week. Students will be required to spend at least three hours (outside class) on the lab assignment each week, and will be encouraged to work together and get help. Questions from students and discussion will be posted on the internet.

Assessment:

Assessment will be based on the Lab assignments and participation in the weekly in-class computer lab.

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT WE DID IN THE FALL 1998 MAPLE CLASS

The url of this page is http://www.math.ufl.edu/~frank/maple.html.
Created by F.G. Garvan (frank@math.ufl.edu) on Thursday, August 20, 1998.
Last update made Tue Dec 1 12:43:42 EST 1998.

$EMAIL: frank@math.ufl.edu$ frank@math.ufl.edu