Mathematics for Engineers and Science Labs Using Maxima

Seifedine Kadry, Pauly Awad

• Publisher: Apple Academic Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429891588
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Matemáticas
• Subtopic: Matemáticas general

This book is designed to be a vital companion to math textbooks covering the topics of precalculus, calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, and probability and statistics. While these existing textbooks focus mainly on solving mathematic problems using the old paper-and-pencil method, this book teaches how to solve these problems using Maxima open-source software. Maxima is a system for the manipulation of symbolic and numerical expressions, including differentiation, integration, Taylor series, Laplace transforms, ordinary differential equations, systems of linear equations, polynomials, sets, lists, vectors, and matrices. One of the benefits of using Maxima to solve mathematics problems is the immediacy with which it produces answers. Investing in learning Maxima now will pay off in the future, particularly for students and beginning professionals in mathematics, science, and engineering. The volume will help readers to apply nearly all of the Maxima skills discussed here to future courses and research.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO wxMAXIMA

Maxima (http://maxima.sourceforge.net/) is an algebra software for the handling of symbolic and numerical expressions, including derivative and integration of functions, series of Taylor, the transformation of Laplace, solving systems of linear equations, solving ordinary differential equations, working with vectors and matrices, the plot in 2D and 3D, and others. Maxima provides high precision and accurate numerical results by using exact fractions variable-precision floating-point numbers. Maxima is an open source software, compatible with Windows, Linux, and MacOS X. Maxima is a descendant of Macsyma, the legendary computer algebra system developed in the late 1960s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Macsyma was revolutionary in its day, and many later systems, such as Maple and Mathematica, were inspired by it.

• wxMAXIMA vs XMAXIMA

There are two possible instances of Maxima, called wxMaxima and XMaxima, both allow the user access to the Maxima commands, the difference is in their graphical display as shown in the figures below.

1. wxMAXIMA

2. XMAXIMA

The graphical interface of wxMaxima is more refined than that of XMaxima because:

• It allows mixing text with mathematical expressions to produce printable documents.

• Some commands can be activated by using the buttons shown at the bottom of the interface, e.g., Simplify, Factor, etc.

• It produces true two-dimensional mathematical output.

• It provides dialogues to enter parameters of selected commands.

• It maintains a command line history buffer where previously used commands can be accessed, repeated, or edited.

• It provides many Max...