Maple comes with a very large number of built-in functions. The help command "?inifunction" provides a list of functions initially-known to Maple. This list is impressive; we will only use a few of these functions in this electronic textbook. All Maple functions are called via the syntax
function_name( arg)
where "function_name" is the name of the function, and "arg" is a single variable or many variables which are the argument(s) for the function.
In particular, we will use the trigonometric functions, i.e., sine, cosine and tangent. These are called by "sin(arg)", "cos(arg)", and "tan(arg)". The argument to these functions is an angle in radians (expressing angles in radians is standard for most computer languages). Lets convince ourselves that Maple knows trigonometry by executing the following commands:
Note that the value of "Pi" is known to Maple. Only "Pi" is known to Maple (case sensitive).
?Pi
will list the "initially known constants" in Maple.
evalf(Pi,15)
will echo the value of "Pi" using 15 digits arithmetics. You should use the abstract variable "Pi" (not a numerical value) in carrying out calculations.
Maple not only knows how to evaluate the trigonometric functions, but it also knows trigonometric relations!
Note that "gamma", "phi", and "theta" translate into the proper Greek letters in the Maple output.
Section 2.4
Chapter 2
Section 2.6
TOC
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