Scot Gould

Scot Gould

517 Reputation

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10 years, 160 days
Upland, California, United States
Dr. Scot Gould is a professor of physics in the W.M. Keck Science Department of Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, Scripps colleges - members of The Claremont Colleges in California. He was involved in the early development of the atomic force microscope. His research has included numerous studies and experiments making us of scanning probe microscopes, particularly those which involved natural fibers such as spider silk. More recently, he was involved in developing and sustaining AISS, a full-year multi-unit non-traditional interdisciplinary undergraduate science education course which integrated topics from biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science. His current interest is integrating computational topics into the physics curriculum. He teaches the use of the computer algebraic and numerical system Maple to assist students in modeling and visualizing physical, and biological, systems. His Dirac-notation based quantum mechanics course is taught solely through Maple. An avid baseball fan, during his spare time, Dr. Gould is traveling, particularly to locations where he can bicycle on smooth, traffic-free roads, visit beaches and/or mountains, and enjoy good food and drink.

MaplePrimes Activity


These are answers submitted by Scot Gould

For some reason, the website is unable to upload my Maple sheet, so I will leave this comment in the form of a PDF that you should be able to download and read.

 

Roots.pdf

For the occasional time that I wish to write "code", i.e., 1-D math input, I prefer to insert a Code Edit Region (CER), and enter the code there. Then, when I wish to paste the code to a Word document, I copy and paste the image of the CER. This process doesn't exactly do what you are asking, but with the coloring and bolding, it does tend to generate a prettier pretty-print. 

 Code_Edit_Region_example.pdf

@mikerostructure  For what it is worth, I generated an eps file version of the plot. As @acer pointed out, it took Maple 2020 more than a minute to generate both the first plot and the second plot. 

To reproduce the image, I sent the file to an online EPS viewer and it worked fine. 

 https://epsviewer.org/onlineviewer.aspx

 

If what you want is Maple code to appear as "real math", have you considered using "2D Input" to input content?  But if you are committed to "Maple Input", does that mean some data that will be entered will not be in SI units?

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Note - I would have uploaded the file and the content of the file, but this is what I received multiple times trying to upload this very simple file:

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Maple Worksheet - Error

Failed to load the worksheet /maplenet/convert/mp_upload.mw .
 

Download mp_upload.mw

 

I use Feedly on Android and other OSes. And then just "add content" -> "MaplePrimes".  My only complaint about the RSS feed is that the spam  still gets through before someone deletes it. 3 of the last 5 posts have been for pain killing medication, wallpaper and mole removal products. 

Or did you not want to use an app like that?

A quick glance suggests a missing divide command in the "parameters = " expression on the last line.

See attached. Refraction_Demo_Doc_version.mw

Note, this document was constructed as part of my experiment with Maple Cloud. 

As someone who spends time trying to get students to use Maple to solve physics / engineering problems because I would rather have them work on those problems, and not math problems, I can understand your frustrations. There are many times I find Maple coding to be less than "math intuitive."

However, for this situation, let me say, what are you trying to do ? Are you trying to take the derivative of f(x) with respect to x and then set the x in the outcome to be equal to 3? This outcome would be 3.  Or, are you trying to take the derivative of f(x) after you have put in the value of 3 for x? Because that is how I initialy read it. (Think arcsin(sin(x)). Pass x to sine, do the calculations, then do the arcsin of the resulting calculation.) For this reading, the outcome is 0. 

Since I'm going to assume the former, then what one needs to know, when Maple sees g(x), x is a variable. However, when Maple see f'(x), it sees the " ' " as the derivative with respect to the variable x.  So for me, the most readable and understandable way to write these statements is:

" f(x):=3 x+2;"

proc (x) options operator, arrow, function_assign; 3*x+2 end proc

(1)

"g(x1):= f'(x1);"

proc (x1) options operator, arrow, function_assign; eval(diff(f(x), x), x = x1) end proc

(2)

g(3)

3

(3)

``


It performs the calculation of the derivative before it evaluates the outcome using x1 as the value for x. 

Download Derivative_example.mw

 

Based on my experience with updating numerous copies of Maple, to update within a shorter period of time, I recommend going directly to the Maplesoft website and downloading the update: https://www.maplesoft.com/support/downloads/m2018_2update.aspx

 

Yes, odd. Correct statement appears to be evalb(true) as in: 
 

if evalb(true) then .... end if;

I too use the right-click button as an instructional tool. In working with this option, I've never seen a menu not show up. However, I've had two situations occur: 1) the first time the menus are loaded, there can be a delay. On some computers, it can be noticable. 2) sometimes one can click on a phrase, either the input or output, and there is nothing for which it can do to it. 

From a pedagogical perspective, I teach the students to write some simple code. For me, nearly all of the math problems can be performed upon learning about 10 commands. But I use the right click for maybe that calculate that requires at most a couple clicks. For a different pedagogical perspective, Robert Lopez should weigh in here. 

I don't quite understand why you want to adjust the size. Regardless, I don't believe such an option exists.

However, I do feel having an option within a right-click menu option would be very useful to those of us who both display plots of a worksheet and print those worksheets. In the former situation, a larger plot is useful, in the later situation, a smaller plot is useful. This might mean establishing a set of sizes: small(100 x 100), medium (200 x 200), large (400 x 400), and default (what was established under plots:-setoptions). 

For inserting equations, plots, etc. from Maple into a Google Doc, I use a screen shot application. In Windows, this is the "Snipping Tool". For me, it works well enough for most situations. 

As an physics instructor who has seen this problems for decades, may I suggest the following: given the symmetry and anti-symmetry of the wavefunction, select initial conditions at x=0 where the system flips from symmetric to antisymmetric, i.e., psi(0)=1, D(psi)(0)=0, etc. This will lead you to more accurate values for the energy of these levels, that is: try different values for E, the value of the energy until your odeplot produces that which are seeking. Using this method to shoot around (often called the “shooting method”), you will obtain a more accurate value for E in whatever units you are using.  I suggest Marko Horbatsch’s book: Quantum Mechanics using Maple.  http://www.maplesoft.com/books/details.aspx?id=214

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