At the end of the blog MRB constant 

Our solar system was created in three hours… well, at least that was how long it took for me to create a model of it in MapleSim. This process started out as an inquiry from a MapleSim user asking if MapleSim can be used to model planetary motions, through the use of Newton’s law of gravity. I view this kind of inquiry as both a challenge (any time someone asks “can MapleSim do such and such” it is an automatic invitation for us Applications Engineers to try it out J ), and an opportunity to learn new things.

While I am somewhat fascinated by astronomy (who isn’t dazzled by all of those pretty photos of various celestial bodies in the universe?!), I have never developed a keen interest in it.  That can be partially attributed to the fact that I grew up in a city that never sleeps, which means serious light pollution (I didn’t realize how beautiful the night sky was and how bright the stars can be until my teenage years on a family camping trip…  but that’s another story). The aspect of astronomy that I understand tells me that the law of gravity applies, to a certain extent, and that the magnitude of the numeric values that we are dealing with (for planetary motion simulation) is astronomical! So for me, these are the two key issues that will need to be addressed when creating a MapleSim model.

Sometimes the obvious escapes me, and it’s only due to some chance observation that I realize the same fundamental principles are everywhere.

A short time ago, I created a simple hydraulic network in MapleSim, and after experimenting with some of the parameters, found it gave the same behaviour as an electric circuit I’d modeled earlier.

with(plots):
a:=[2.5,2.5,2.5,2.5,5,2.5,2.5,2.5,2.5];
b:=Matrix(3,3,a);
matrixplot(b)

Two corners have been drawn differently.  Shouldn't it be symmetric?  This appears to be a bug

Here's one view showing the sides cut away

and the other view of the other corners, rotated 90 degrees, to show what it should look like.

This is a view I would expect to see all around however the corner in the forefront and the one you can't see have been cut away as I've shown in the rotated view above.

I thought of a couple of new forum subtopics ... just an idea

Maple training beginner to advanced
 - not sure of the formalities here but this could be sub-forum-topic where one could go to get a better grasp of using maple however I think that comes with time anyways, as I said just a thought.  Lots of tutorials out there that do similar things anyways.

Using Maple in interesting ways
- This would be a subforum where users could post their finished projects.

Maple has been able to solve linear programnming (LP) problems since Release 9 with Optimization[LPSolve]. This is a very important feature for people who are interested in optimization applications. However, as far as I know, LPSolve only provides the final optimal solution, but does not give any sensitivity analysis results.

I believe that LP solutions without sensitivity analysis are not very useful since one needs to compute the dual prices for resources, optimality ranges for objective function coefficients, etc.

It's funny that multiplication of a single number works on a list for each element but addition does not work the same way.

a:=[1,2,3]

3*a;
       [3,6,9]

3+a;
 error

You have to use zip(`+`,3,a) for it to work.  Is there not a simple way.  Why is that?

We've been working hard on the brand new version of MaplePrimes over the last few months. I am glad to announce that the new version will be launching publicly next week. The new site fixes many of the requests we've received from MaplePrimes users over the years, and adds new features that we think will make the new site easier to use, and a better way to get and share information about Maple and MapleSim.

I am happy to let you know that we have just released Maple 14 and MapleSim 4.

Maple 14 provides access to the new MapleCloud Document Exchange, which gives you an easy way to share your work with your colleagues, your students, and the entire Maple community. Other new features include more mathematics for engineering applications; performance improvements; the Maple Toolbox for MATLAB®, which is now included with Maple 14; a new numerical differential equations solver, the Cash-Karp pair; an enhanced point probe for 2-D plots; more task templates; and the ability to execute Maple documents programmatically. To name a few. See What’s New in Maple 14 for more information, and to watch a movie about the MapleCloud.

MapleSim 4 comes with a new 3-D construction environment for multibody modeling, which lets you build, visualization, and interact with a 3-D representation of your model. It also provides flexible probe management tools, a new semi-stiff solver, new components, and an enhanced Project Manager feature which organizes subsystems, probes, and attachments. For the full list, and to see a movie showing the new 3-D construction environment, see What’s New in MapleSim 4.

Recently I have had a chance to use the parameter feature of the numeric dsolve. It's pretty nice, but appears to have some limitations - or maybe I just need a little help to further refine my use of this feature.

Here's an example to demonstrate what I'm encountering.

Let's start with a simple IVP with a parameter in the ODE and in the IC:

ode := diff(x(t),t)=x(t)*(A-x(t)):
ic := x(0)=x0:
sol := dsolve( {ode,ic}, x(t), numeric, parameters=[A,x0] ):

To specify values of the parameters, I do something like:

Some calculus texts compute volumes of solids by the method of "slices" before they discuss the methods of disks and shells. On the other hand, there are texts that start with disks and shells, then throw in a few examples of slices. In any event, these calculations are supposed to be illustrations of how definite integration is an additive process. Unfortunately, students often get lost in the details of the individual examples, and fail to see that all these calculations are just demonstrations that definite integration is a process of addition.

Our previous article described the design of fast algorithms for multiplying and dividing sparse polynomials. We have integrated these algorithms into the expand and divide commands of Maple 14. In this post I want to talk a bit about what you might see when you try Maple 14. Keep in mind that the product isn't released yet and I don't work for Maplesoft, so general disclaimers apply. Nevertheless, one of the first things you may notice is this.

Since my blog (as well as other) posts are deleted here, I am not that anxious to continue posting here. Meanwhile, I started a blog at Windows Live and my mapleadvisor site.

I was also thinking about restoring my part of the wiki that was there, but don't have time for that at the moment.

Alec

I haven't been logged into this site regularly for a while, being busy with other things.

But I've just noticed that, some time in the past few weeks, Robert Israel's eponymous handle has attained a mapleprimes points number that exceeds the total of all the handles that I've ever used here. So... congratulations, Robert!

I've...

For the past few weeks I have been unable to upload image files to MaplePrimes. Here's what happens.  I press the green up arrow and locate the file to be uploaded (typically a .GIF file). After I say OK and press the Upload button, the preview shows the last file I successfully uploaded.

Is this, by chance, a problem with my account - or my browser, or is it a MaplePrimes problem.

I don't know what additional information  you need. Please let me know and I'll do my best to comply.

Doug