Joe Riel, Many thanks for the tip about the :- operator. Perhaps I have misunderstood, but in this case 'Q' is a pre-defined argument of JordanForm (as is 'J'), rather than a global variable. Consider this: restart; Q := <<0,-2,-2,-2>|<-3,1,1,-3>|<1,-1,-1,1>|<2,2,2,4>>; LinearAlgebra:-JordanForm(Q,output='Q'); I agree with tobybailey that the nomenclature of these arguments could be improved. Why not call them Jordform and Transmat, or something that is less likely to be confused with other variables? J. Tarr

This worked for me: restart; f := proc(A) LinearAlgebra:-JordanForm(A, output='Q'); end proc: B := <<0,-2,-2,-2>|<-3,1,1,-3>|<1,-1,-1,1>|<2,2,2,4>>: f(B); Later edit. This also worked: restart; f := proc(A) local C; C := A; LinearAlgebra:-JordanForm(C, output='Q'); end proc: B := <<0,-2,-2,-2>|<-3,1,1,-3>|<1,-1,-1,1>|<2,2,2,4>>: f(B); Hope this helps. J. Tarr

It gave this for me: {x = z, y = x, n = y, z = -z-x+y} J. Tarr

It gave this for me: {x = z, y = x, n = y, z = -z-x+y} J. Tarr

Your question was answered here. All that you had to do was insert a few extra spaces in the example given to see the effect of Squeeze. Please keep the same question, or variations on it, to the same thread. J. Tarr

This seems to work: restart; seq(lambda[jj mod 3],jj=0..8); seq(lambda[modp(jj,3)],jj=0..8); Don't know why the $ version doesn't work. J. Tarr

After using cat(seq(op([i],p1[1]),i=1..3)) you have an object of type symbol or name. Whether to convert it depends on whether you want to process it with StringTools. If not, you probably don't need to convert to string. Hope this helps, J. Tarr

You could do something like this: cat(seq(op([i],p1[1]),i=1..3)); Hope this helps, J. Tarr

Please see ?minimize. That will find the infimum. Not sure about the superimum, but I think it is maximize. Hope this is what you are looking for, J. Tarr

You might like to use Maple's export as text - please see ?worksheet,managing,exportplaintext. Hope this is what you are looking for. J. Tarr

You might like to use Maple's export as text - please see ?worksheet,managing,exportplaintext. Hope this is what you are looking for. J. Tarr

Axel, I very much agree with you. With the best of intentions Tom4 started the snowball rolling with this. Perhaps Will wouldn't mind moving the Baedeker (or is it Guide Michelin?) somewhere else please? Many thanks, J. Tarr

You told Maple to use the side relation that M = something. Maple didn't find M in the expression that you wanted to simplify, so it produced the original expression. Order matters! In your example you could do this: restart; lz := -1/2*a^4*Pi*rho*2^(1/2)+1/2*b^4*Pi*rho*2^(1/2); sidrel:= -a^2*Pi*rho*2^(1/2)+b^2*Pi*rho*2^(1/2)=Mass; simplify(lz,{sidrel}); Hope this helps. J. Tarr

You told Maple to use the side relation that M = something. Maple didn't find M in the expression that you wanted to simplify, so it produced the original expression. Order matters! In your example you could do this: restart; lz := -1/2*a^4*Pi*rho*2^(1/2)+1/2*b^4*Pi*rho*2^(1/2); sidrel:= -a^2*Pi*rho*2^(1/2)+b^2*Pi*rho*2^(1/2)=Mass; simplify(lz,{sidrel}); Hope this helps. J. Tarr

George, The key phrase for y(x) given under Parameters in dsolve,details is: "required if ODE contains derivatives of more than *one* such function". This is reinforced further down the page under Input and Output, with an important exception. But you are quite right that the Help pages could be a lot clearer and better indexed. I also believe that the Help search engine needs improvement. If these things were done, many of the questions that appear on MaplePrimes would vanish. More importantly, those asking the questions could be doing their work instead of trying to figure out how particular commands work, or what command is needed. Regards, J. Tarr