We are happy to announce that we released MapleSim 2022 today.

The MapleSim 2022 family of products offers improvements in modeling and connectivity, including many that are in direct response to customer requests. Improvements include:

• Reduce diagram clutter by using “wireless” To-From blocks for a larger variety of signals
• Easily create, customize, and fine-tune control valves with new components and tools in the hydraulics library
• Expand modeling scope with improvements to several specialized libraries and toolboxes, including the MapleSim add-on products for Battery, Heat Transfer, and Web Handling
• New productivity and connectivity features in MapleSim Insight,  a standalone product in the MapleSim family that gives machine builders powerful simulation-based debugging and 3-D visualization capabilities that connect directly to your automation tools

See What’s New in MapleSim 2022 for more information about these and other improvements.

Hello Maple Learn enthusiasts, of all disciplines! Do any of you study Chemistry, or simply enjoy it? Well, you’re in luck. We’re released a new collection of documents in the document gallery, all focused on Chemistry. Remember, Maple Learn isn’t just for math fields. We also have documents on Biology, Physics, Finance, and much more!

First, we have our new gas laws documents. These documents focus on Boyle’s law, Charles’ law, Gay-Lussac’s law, and Avogadro’s law. We also have documents on the Combined Gas law and the Ideal Gas law. Many of these laws also have example questions to go along with them, for your studying needs.

We also have documents on molar and atomic mass. One example for atomic mass teaches you to use the proper formulas (No spoilers for the answer here, folks!) using the material Hafnium and its five isotopes. Don’t know the approximate masses of the isotopes without looking them up? No worries, I don’t either! It’s in the question text, as a hint.

Finally, let’s take a look at the dilution documents. We have documents discussing the calculations, and some examples. In this document, there are both an example walking you through the steps, and a practice question for you to try yourself. Of course, the solution is included at the bottom of the document, but we encourage you to try the problem yourself first.

We hope you’re just as excited as us for the Chemistry collection! Like our other collections, the Chemistry collection is constantly being added to. If you have any ideas for future documents, or even just topics you’d like to see, let us know in the comments below.

Today is a very exciting day at Maplesoft! Yesterday, we released Sumzle on the Maple Calculator app. Of course, this might not mean anything to you yet, because, well, what is Sumzle? Don’t worry, we know you’re asking. So, without waiting any longer, let’s take a look.

Sumzle is a math game, inspired by the Wordle craze, where you attempt to guess an equation. Each guess:

• Must include an equal sign
• Must include up to two operators
• May include a blank column

Sumzle’s interface looks like this:

After each guess, the tile’s colors change to reflect how correct the guess was. Green means that the tile is in the right spot, yellow means the tile is in the equation but the wrong spot, and grey means that it is not in the equation. Let me show you the progression of a game, on the Fun difficulty.

Sumzle can be played once a day on the free tier. For unlimited games, you can subscribe to Maple Calculator Premium or ask your friends to challenge you!

Math games are for everyone, and Sumzle has three levels of difficulty. Are you interested in the history of Sumzle? I sure am!

Sumzle was originally designed by Marek Krzeminski, a MapleSim developer. He had called it Mathie and showed the game to his colleagues here at Maplesoft. Well, we loved it!

After a few months of discussion and development, we tweaked the game to create Sumzle. Honestly, the hardest part was naming the game! We had so many great suggestions, such as Mathstermind and Addle. Eventually, we put it to a vote, and Sumzle rose above the rest.

We hope you enjoy the game, because Math not only matters, but is fun. Don’t forget to update your Maple Calculator app in order to receive that game, as otherwise you won’t be able to find it. Next time you need a break, we challenge you to a game of Sumzle!

A user found that the behaviour of calling a command from a library with a long form command name which invoked another command from that library with the short form name was unexpected:

We suggested to either

[Edit May 13 after Acer's improvements]

A) import the package such that all short form names of commands from the package are available in the Maple session and use the short form of both commands:

Download scientificConstantsGetValueShortFormsWithPackage.mw

or

B) use long forms for both command names:

Download scientificConstantsGetValueLongFormLongForm.mw

or

C) to test that a long form command and a short form command work together, import the package for the short form command:

Download scientificConstantsGetValueLongFormWithPackage.mw

Further details can be found in the article ?UsingPackages

Have you ever wanted to create practice problems and quizzes that use buttons and other features to support a student making their way to an answer, such as the following?

• Is this a function?
• Total Mass practice quiz
• Vector Operations quiz
• Steps Document – Matrix Eigenvalues

Let’s take a look at how you can use Maple 2022 to create documents like these that can be deployed in Maple Learn. I know I’ve always wanted to learn, so let’s learn together. All examples have a document that you can use to follow along, found here, in Maple Cloud.  

The most important command you’ll want to take a look at is ShareCanvas. This command generates a Maple Learn document. Make sure to remember that command, instead of ShowCanvas, so that the end result gives you a link to a document instead of showing the results in Maple. You’ll also want to make sure you load the DocumentTools:-Canvas subpackage using with(DocumentTools:- Canvas).

If you take a look at our first example, below, the code may seem intimidating. However, let’s break it down, I promise it makes sense!

with(DocumentTools:-Canvas);
cv := NewCanvas([Text("Volume of Revolution", fontsize = 24), "This solid of revolution is created by rotating", f(x) = cos(x) + 1, Text("about the y=0 axis on the interval %1", 0 <= x and x <= 4*Pi), Plot3D("Student:-Calculus1:-VolumeOfRevolution(cos(x) + 1, x = 0 .. 4*Pi, output = plot, caption=``)")]);
ShareCanvas(cv);

The key command is Plot3D. This plots the desired graph and places it into a Maple Learn document. The code around it places text and a math group containing the equation being graphed. 

Let’s take a look at IntPractice now. The next example allows a student to practice evaluating an integral.

with(Grading):
IntPractice(Int(x*sin(x), x, 'output'='link'));

 This command allows you to enter an integral and the variable of integration, and then evaluates each step a student enters on their way to finding a result. The feedback given on every line is incredibly useful. Not only will it tell you if your steps are right, but will let you know if your last line is correct, i.e if the answer is correct.

Finally, let’s talk about SolvePractice.

with(Grading):
SolvePractice(2*x + 3 = 6*x - 9, 'output' = 'link');

This command takes an equation, and evaluates it for the specified variable. Like the IntPractice command, this command will check your steps and provide feedback. The image below shows how this command looks in Maple 2022.

These commands are the stepping stones for creating practice questions in Maple Learn. We can do so much more in Maple 2022 scripting than I realized, so let’s continue to learn together!

Some other examples of scripted documents in the Maple Learn Document Gallery are our steps documents, this document on the Four Color Visualization Theorem, and a color by numbers. As you can see, there’s a lot that can be done with Maple Scripting.

 Let us know in the comments if you’d like to see more on Maple 2022 scripting and Maple Learn.

MapleSim is a fantastic tool to model multi-domain physical systems at a level that was unthinkable not so long ago. This post is about a simple problem that can be solved by hand, but where I failed with MapleSim using online resources.

For some time, I have been looking for answers to two questions:

• How to control which variables (and parameters) are included in MapleSims equation exports? This question is crucial to derive forward and inverse kinematics.
• Can the Equation Extraction App (in principle) provide a similar set of equations than the Multibody Analysis App? This question is rather academic until multidomain exports are desired (which the Multibody Analysis can’t provide).

The attached model helped me to clarify a few things and discover a real hidden secret (at least it was for me). I hope it can help others.

The model is a rather simple 3DOF mechanism. The task was to get a set of equations to derive the two rotations and the one displacement of the mechanism as a function of x,y,z coordinates.

After watching videos and inspecting models from the model gallery on inverse kinematics, I placed motion drivers for the input variables, added sensors for the output variables and wrapped the mechanism into a subsystem. However, as explained in more detail in the attachment, the set of exported variables was incomplete in both apps (AEs exports in the Equation Extraction Export and Position Constraints in the Multibody Analysis Export). Furthermore, the number of extracted equations did not match the three degrees of freedom.

After numerous trials it turned out that in addition to the motion drivers and sensors, initial conditions (ICs) had to be set. This is the hidden secret.  The crucial initial conditions (detailed in the attachment) are not required to assemble and run the model. So, introducing them temporarily for equation extraction is not obvious and never came to my mind. Setting ICs is, if I am not completely mistaken, also not highlighted in the documentation. This little trick of additionally setting initial conditions answered the above questions positively (at least for this 3DOF mechanism). In fact, it worked so well that all other failed attempts of conditioning the model for equations extraction worked immediately:

• Immobilizing the assembly with a Fixed Frame (using parameters for the fixed frame position to represent input variables; the fixed frame can be inside or outside the subsystem model).
• Using one Prescribed Translation component Instead of 3 motion drivers
• Using variables to pass motion signals into the model subsystem instead of using signals and ports (using From variable and To Variable components)

These attempts underline the effort and the time spend to get the relevant equations for that simple problem. As it turned out, all approaches work but are not even required for the mechanism. The key to success was setting the ICs of the joints.  One can even strip the model down to its skeleton (removing all motion drivers and sensors as in the screen shot bellow) and still get the desired simple set of equations, provided the ICs are set.

It has to be noted, that the mechanically coupled (highlighted in yellow) prismatic joints contributed to the problems: MapleSim does not seem to take this mechanical constraint into account (as I would have expected). The ICs of both coupled components must be set to get the three equations containing all desired in and output variables.

If my finding is correct and of general relevance, I like to suggest including such kind of tips and tricks in training or reference material.  From an application engineer or developers’ perspective, knowing the underlying algorithms, its probably obvious what has to be done. But from a user’s perspective MaplsSim is a black box that works magically well in most cases. If it does not, trial and error is often the only alternative to make it work, because models are either too complex or too confidential to be shared with others.   

What I am addressing here is only the initial step of getting the desired equations. There is more to master. Save manipulation of equations too big to be inspected visually is also important. This has been well covered in several videos. Unfortunately, the quality of some of the footage does not allow to capture details of Maple commands. If possible, such material should be updated or replaced.

Overall, a collection of tips&tricks and dos&don’ts could establish some kind of best practice in deriving kinematics. If others would share their experience and findings, we all could save allot of time. A collection of valuable posts, questions, models, videos, and webinars could be a start. This collection not necessarily has to meet the high Maple standards of mathematical exactness and consistency. Engineers also accept pragmatic solutions to solve a problem.

If my findings are incorrect or you have better advise, please let us know.

MBA_and_equation_extraction.msim

A user of ours came up with an interesting request: taking a procedure name as an argument and then within the procedure, return a set containing the names of all variables within the procedure. This task can be accomplished in one of two ways, one with local variables, one with global variables.

One method is:

find_vars_in_proc(f :: procedure, $)
  return {op(2, eval(f))};
end proc;

for variables that Maple unambiguously determines to be local variables. For global variables, a slight variation appears as:

find_vars_in_proc(f :: procedure, $)
  return {op(2, eval(f)), op(6, eval(f))};
end proc;

As always, typing ?procedure directly in the worksheet brings up the help guide containing more information on operands of a procedure!

Bon vendredi à tous! Je suis de retour avec un autre article de mise à jour détaillant les nouveautés que nous avons apportés à Maple Learn cette semaine. Bonne lecture!

Tout d'abord, nous avons ajouté des permutations et des combinaisons, ainsi que la notation binomiale, à Maple Learn ! Gardez l’œil à l’affût des documents utilisant ces nouvelles fonctionnalités et consultez nos exemples ici et ici. Les opérations se trouvent dans la palette des fonctions. Nous espérons que cela permettra de rendre votre création de document avec Maple Learn encore plus agréable !

Nous avons également mis à jour la syntaxe des graphiques paramétriques pour utiliser l'opérateur tel que. Veuillez consulter notre page d’instruction pour plus de détails (ici). Remplacez simplement la virgule de l'ancienne syntaxe par le |. À partir de là, placez vos restrictions et le tour est joué ! Un graphique paramétrique utilisant l'opérateur tel que.

Enfin, quelques changements mineurs à Maple Learn. Nous avons ajusté la taille de police par défaut à une police de taille 20. De plus, nous avons fait en sorte qu'il remplace automatiquement <= ou >= par le symbole ≤ ou ≥.

J'espère que ces nouvelles fonctionnalités sont tout aussi intéressantes pour vous qu'elles le sont pour moi ! Faites-nous savoir ce que vous pensez dans les commentaires ci-dessous.

Happy Friday everyone! I’m back with another update post detailing the new changes we’ve made to Maple Learn this week. Just keep reading, and we’ll get right into them.

First, we’ve added permutations and combinations, along with binomial notation, to Maple Learn! Keep an eye out for documents using these new features, and check out our examples here and here.  The operations can be found in the functions palette. We hope that this allows even more fun with documents on Maple Learn!

We’ve also updated the syntax for parametric plots to use the such that operator. Please see our how-to page for more detail (here). Simply replace the comma from the old syntax with the |. From there, place your restrictions, and voila! A parametric plot using the such that operator.

Finally, some minor changes to Maple Learn. We’ve adjusted the default font size to 20 point font. As well, we’ve made it automatically change <= or >= to the ≤ or ≥ symbol.

I hope these new features are just as exciting to you as they are to me! Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Users often wonder how the length(expr) command works.

length(expr) returns the length of expr.

For more information, see the ?length help article in Maple, or Online Help version. 

Probability is a field of mathematics that sees extensive use outside of academics.  Whether one’s checking the likelihood of rain on a weather app or the odds of winning the lottery, probability is everywhere.  My favorite application of probability is dice games like Dungeons and Dragons.  The game can be played very simply (choose to attack a monster, roll a 20-sided-die, try to exceed a certain number) or with a complexity that rivals high school math courses.  There are spells and abilities that modify one’s dice rolls, such as adding additional rolls to the total or rerolling the die and using the higher result.  A good player regularly asks themself when to activate certain buffs and how likely they are to succeed with or without them.

All of these questions boil down to the basics of probability.  Things that one learns in an introductory statistics course extend into countless applications.  Currently, I’m adding some of that knowledge to the Maple Learn document gallery, and I’m here to give a sneak peek.

First, I’ve built tree diagrams in Maple Learn.  Tree diagrams are a way to map probability across multiple events occurring in sequence.  Each branching path represents a series of events that have a specified probability of occurring.

Here’s an example: one morning I flip a coin to decide if I buy a lottery ticket.  If it’s heads, I do.  If I buy the ticket, I have a one in a million chance of winning the cash prize.  Drawn as a tree diagram…

I drew this using Maple Learn line, point, and label operations.

My new D&D-themed documents are a bit more exciting.  In the first, we explore a tree diagram with variable probabilities.  A brave hero makes their way into a dungeon, attacking any random monster they see.  How likely are they to land an attack?  Adjust the details of the question and watch the diagram change.

In the second, I used Maple program scripting to add a live randomized dice roller.  Many probability techniques are at play to analyze which of two buffs will do more good for a dice-rolling adventurer.

I plan on making more documents like these; keep your eyes on the Document Gallery probability collection for updates.

Les probabilités sont  un domaine des mathématiques largement utilisé en dehors des universités. Que l'on vérifie la probabilité de l’apparition de la pluie sur une application météo ou les chances de gagner à la loterie, les probabilités sont partout. Mon application des probabilités préférée est les jeux de dés comme Donjons et Dragons. Le jeu peut se jouer très simplement (choisir d'attaquer un monstre, lancer un dé à 20 faces, essayer de dépasser un certain nombre) ou avec une complexité qui rivalise avec les cours de mathématiques du lycée. Il existe des sorts et des capacités qui modifient les lancés de dés, comme ajouter des lancés supplémentaires au total ou relancer le dé et utiliser le résultat le plus élevé. Un bon joueur se demande régulièrement quand activer certains « buffs » et quelle est la probabilité qu'ils réussissent avec ou sans eux.

Toutes ces questions se résument aux bases des probabilités. Les choses que l'on apprend dans un cours d'introduction aux statistiques s'étendent à d'innombrables applications. Actuellement, j'ajoute certaines de ces connaissances à la galerie de documents Maple Learn je voulais vous en donner un aperçu.

Tout d'abord, j'ai construit des arbres de probabilité avec Maple Learn. Ceux-ci permettent de représenter graphiquement la probabilité de plusieurs événements se produisant en séquence. Chaque chemin de branchement représente une série d'événements qui ont une probabilité de se produire spécifique.

Voici un exemple : un matin, je lance une pièce pour décider si j'achète un billet de loterie. Si c'est face, je le fais. Si j'achète le billet, j'ai une chance sur un million de gagner l’argent. Dessiné sous forme d'arbre de probabilité…

J'ai dessiné ceci en utilisant les fonctionnalités ligne, point et étiquette de Maple Learn.

Mes nouveaux documents sur le thème de D&D sont un peu plus intéressants. Dans le premier, nous explorons un arbre de probabilités variables. Un héros courageux se rend dans un donjon, attaquant n'importe quel monstre aléatoire qu'il voit. Quelle est la probabilité qu'ils lancent une attaque ? Ajustez les détails de la question et regardez le diagramme changer.

Dans le second, j'ai utilisé la fonction script de Maple pour ajouter un lanceur de dés aléatoire en direct. De nombreuses techniques de probabilité sont en jeu pour analyser lequel des deux « buffs » fera le plus de bien à un aventurier qui lance les dés.

Je prévois de faire plus de documents comme ceux-ci; gardez un œil sur la catégorie de probabilités dans la galerie de documents Maple Learn pour les mises à jour.

A user wondered why an example of integration by parts from the Calculus Study Guide was immediately showing the final answer instead of the parts steps shown in the Guide. 

We suggest users pay special attention to the "Initialize" rows of the Guide example(s) where converting the integral to inert form is discussed. 

Using an inert form of the integral ensures that Maple does not evaluate the integral unexpectedly. 

Download CSGG-6-1-4.mw

Download: StandardModel.mw

Edgardo S. Cheb-Terrab
Physics, Differential Equations and Mathematical Functions, Maplesoft

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. After months and months of hard work by a lot of people, it’s finally arrived:

It's Maple launch day!

Yes, I am very pleased to announce that Maple 2022 is here.

As we’ve done in years past, Samir and I started this release by spending many hours reviewing feedback from Maple Primes posts, support emails, sessions with staff who regularly talk with customers and who use Maple themselves, and our own direct conversations with customers. Of course a year is never enough to implement every good idea, but our goal was to identity a feature set that would appeal to, delight, and hopefully excite our customers.

Ultimately, you will be the judge, but I can tell that there are some things in Maple 2022 that I am personally very excited about. These are “quality of life” improvements that have been requested by customs and make some things in Maple that were frankly kind of annoying a lot better. The rest of this post will discuss my favorite improvements in more detail (or you can watch this video), and of course, you can get much more information about these and all the other improvements in What’s New in Maple 2022.

#1 – Did you ever find yourself jumping back and forth between your Maple document and Print Preview, again and again, as you prepare your worksheet for printing or export to PDF? It can be a pain, especially with long documents that include plots, tables, and sections. So I'm happy to announce that Maple 2022 includes a new Print Layout mode. This new layout mode lets you see the page boundaries as you edit the document, so you can adjust your content as you go. In Maple 2022, what you see on the page is what you get when you print or export to PDF. Hurray!

#2 – Are you tired of explaining to your students why the graph of tan(x) doesn’t look right in Maple?  Good news!  With Maple 2022, you won’t have to have that conversation ever again. Maple 2022's new adaptive plotting algorithm means that when you plot tan(x), 1/(1-x), floor and ceiling functions, and most other curves with discontinuities, you’ll get what you expect by default – no more vertical lines, no need to specify the discont option, and it’s still fast.

#3 – Did you ever run into a situation where zooming, panning, or resizing your plot didn’t actually give you the better view of the plot you were looking for? Now Maple recomputes and redraws when needed to give you what you wanted – a good look at your plot.

#4 – Are you a fan of the Plot Builder? If you are, I'm delighted to let you know that the Plot Builder in Maple 2022 now supports plotting multiple expressions together on the same axes. So don't hold back - use the Plot Builder to customize plots and animations of any number of 2-D and 3-D expressions plots and animations. (We also got rid of that annoying empty plot when you first open it, too.)

#5 - And, by popular demand, Maple 2022 now magnifies the text in the table of contents/search results when you magnify a help page. No more squinting to find the topic of interest. My eyes are much happier.

Those are my favorites, but there is a lot more in the release. To learn more about all the improvements in Maple 2022, visit What’s New in Maple 2022