A new feature has been released on Maple Learn called “collapsible sections”! This feature allows for users to hide content within sections on the canvas. You can create a section by highlighting the desired text and clicking this icon in the top toolbar: . 

“Well, when can I actually use sections?” you may ask. Let me walk you through two quick scenarios so you can get an idea.

For our first scenario, let’s say you’re an instructor. You just finished a lesson on the derivatives of trigonometric functions and you’re now going through practice problems. The question itself is not long enough to hide the answers, so you’re wondering how you can cover the two solutions below so that the students can try out the problem themselves first.

Before, you might have considered hyperlinking a solution document or placing the solution lower down on the page. But now, collapsible sections have come to the rescue! Here’s how the document looks like now:  

You can see that the solutions are now hidden, although the section title still indicates which solution it belongs to. Now, you can 1) keep both solutions hidden, 2) show one solution at a time, or 3) show solutions side-by side and compare them!

Now for the second scenario, imagine you’re making a document which includes a detailed visualization such as in Johnson and Jackson’s proof of the Pythagorean theorem. You want the focus to be on the proof, not the visualizations commands that come along with the proof. What do you do?

It’s an easy solution now that collapsible sections are available!

Now, you can focus on the proof without being distracted by other information—although the visualization commands can still be accessed by expanding the section again.

So, take inspiration and use sections to your advantage! We will be doing so as well. you may gradually notice some changes in existing documents in the Maple Learn Gallery as we update them to use collapsible sections. 

Happy document-making!

A new collection has been released on Maple Learn! The new Pascal’s Triangle Collection allows students of all levels to explore this simple, yet widely applicable array.

Though the binomial coefficient triangle is often referred to as Pascal’s Triangle after the 17th-century mathematician Blaise Pascal, the first drawings of the triangle are much older. This makes assigning credit for the creation of the triangle to a single mathematician all but impossible.

Persian mathematicians like Al-Karaji were familiar with the triangular array as early as the 10th century. In the 11th century, Omar Khayyam studied the triangle and popularised its use throughout the Arab world, which is why it is known as “Khayyam’s Triangle” in the region. Meanwhile in China, mathematician Jia Xian drew the triangle to 9 rows, using rod numerals. Two centuries later, in the 13th century, Yang Hui introduced the triangle to greater Chinese society as “Yang Hui’s Triangle”. In Europe, various mathematicians published representations of the triangle between the 13th and 16th centuries, one of which being Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia, who propagated the triangle in Italy, where it is known as “Tartaglia’s Triangle”. 

Blaise Pascal had no association with the triangle until years after his 1662 death, when his book, Treatise on Arithmetical Triangle, which compiled various results about the triangle, was published. In fact, the triangle was not named after Pascal until several decades later, when it was dubbed so by Pierre Remond de Montmort in 1703.

The Maple Learn collection provides opportunities for students to discover the construction, properties, and applications of Pascal’s Triangle. Furthermore, students can use the triangle to detect patterns and deduce identities like Pascal’s Rule and The Binomial Symmetry Rule. For example, did you know that colour-coding the even and odd numbers in Pascal’s Triangle reveals an approximation of Sierpinski’s Fractal Triangle?

See Pascal’s Triangle and Fractals

Or that taking the sum of the diagonals in Pascal's Triangle produces the Fibonacci Sequence?

See Pascal’s Triangle and the Fibonacci Sequence

Learn more about these properties and discover others with the Pascal’s Triangle Collection on Maple Learn. Once you are confident in your knowledge of Pascal’s Triangle, test your skills with the interactive Pascal’s Triangle Activity. 

On November 11^th, Canada and other Commonwealth member states will celebrate Remembrance Day, also known as Armistice Day. This holiday commemorates the armistice signed by Germany and the Entente Powers in Compiègne, France on November 11, 1918, to end the hostilities on the Western Front of World War I. The armistice came into effect at 11:00 am that morning – the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”. 

Similar to how November 11^th – which can be written as 11/11 – is a palindromic date that reads the same forward and backward, last year there was “Twosday” – February 22, 2022, also written 22/2/22. 

Palindromic dates like November 11^th that consist only of a day and a month happen every year, but how long will we have to wait until the next “Twosday”? We can use Maple Learn’s new Calendar Calculator to find out!

To use this document, simply input two dates and press ‘Calculate’ to find the amount of time between them, presented in a variety of units. For example, here are the results for the number of days left until Christmas from November 11^th of this year:

If we return to our original question, which concerns how long we’ll have to wait until the next “Twosday”, we can use this document to find our answer:

You can use this document as a countdown to find out how much time is left until your favorite holiday, your next birthday, or the time between now and any past or future date; try out the countdown document here!

We have just released updates to Maple and MapleSim.

Maple 2023.2 includes a strikethrough character style, a new unit system, improved behavior when editing or deleting subscripts, improved find-and-replace, better mouse selection of piecewise functions and the contents of matrices, and more.  We recommend that all Maple 2023 users install this update.

This update also include a fix to the problem with setoptions3d, as first reported on MaplePrimes. Thanks, as always, for helping us make Maple better.

This update is available through Tools>Check for Updates in Maple, and is also available from the Maple 2023.2 download page, where you can find more details.

At the same time, we have also released an update to MapleSim, which contains a variety of improvements to MapleSim and its add-ons. You can find more information on the MapleSim 2023.2 download page.

Many everyday decisions are made using the results of coin flips and die rolls, or of similar probabilistic events. Though we would like to assume that a fair coin is being used to decide who takes the trash out or if our favorite soccer team takes possession of the ball first, it is impossible to know if the coin is weighted from a single trial.

Instead, we can perform an experiment like the one outlined in Hypothesis Testing: Doctored Coin. This is a walkthrough document for testing if a coin is fair, or if it has been doctored to favor a certain outcome. 

This hypothesis testing document comes from Maple Learn’s new Estimating collection, which contains several documents, authored by Michael Barnett, that help build an understanding of how to estimate the probability of an event occurring, even when the true probability is unknown.

One of the activities in this collection is the Likelihood Functions - Experiment document, which builds an intuitive understanding of likelihood functions. This document provides sets of observed data from binomial distributions and asks that you guess the probability of success associated with the random variable, giving feedback based on your answer. 

Once you’ve developed an understanding of likelihood functions, the next step in determining if a coin is biased is the Maximum Likelihood Estimate Example – Coin Flip activity. In this document, you can run as many randomized trials of coin flips as you like and see how the maximum likelihood estimate, or MLE, changes, bearing in mind that if a coin is fair, the probability of either heads or tails should be 0.5. 

Finally, in order to determine in earnest if a coin has been doctored to favor one side over the other, a hypothesis test must be performed. This is a process in which you test any data that you have against the null hypothesis that the coin is fair and determine the p-value of your data, which will help you form your conclusion.

This Hypothesis Testing: Doctored Coin document is a walkthrough of a hypothesis test for a potentially biased coin. You can run a number of trials on this coin, determine the null and alternative hypotheses of your test, and find the test statistic for your data, all using your understanding of the concepts of likelihood functions and MLEs. The document will then guide you through the process of determining your p-value and what this means for your conclusion.

So if you’re having suspicions that a coin is biased or that a die is weighted, check out Maple Learn’s Estimating collection and its activities to help with your investigation!

With Halloween right around the corner, we at Maplesoft wanted to celebrate the occasion with an activity where you can carve your own pumpkin… using math! 

Halloween is said to have originated a few hundred years back in ancient Celtic festivals, specifically one called Samhain. This was celebrated from October 31st to November 1st to mark the end of harvesting season and the beginning of winter, or the "darker quarter" of the year. Since then, Halloween has evolved into a fun celebration of candy and costumes in many countries!

With that said, here’s my take on the pumpkin carving activity: 

The great thing is, if you mess up, you can always go back; unlike carving pumpkins in real life. My design is pretty simple (although cute), so let’s see what you all can impress us with!

You can also make your own original art and publish it to your channel so that anyone can see your own artistic creations. You can also attend the Maple Conference next week on October 26 and 27, an event filled with two days of presentations from members of the Maplesoft Community. Participants will also be able to see all the artwork submitted for the Art Gallery and Creative Showcase, where you can draw inspiration for your own submissions to next year’s showcase! The conference is virtual and free of charge, and you can register here.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Almost 300 years ago, a single letter exchanged between two brilliant minds gave rise to one of the most enduring mysteries in the world of number theory. 

In 1742, Christian Goldbach penned a letter to fellow mathematician Leonhard Euler proposing that every even integer greater than 2 can be written as a sum of two prime numbers. This statement is now known as Goldbach’s Conjecture (it is considered a conjecture, and not a theorem because it is unproven). While neither of these esteemed mathematicians could furnish a formal proof, they shared a conviction that this conjecture held the promise of being a "completely certain theorem." The following image demonstrates how prime numbers add to all even numbers up to 50:

From its inception, Goldbach's Conjecture has enticed generations of mathematicians to seek evidence of its legitimacy. Though weaker versions of the conjecture have been proved, the definitive proof of the original conjecture has remained elusive. There was even once a one-million dollar cash prize set to be awarded to anyone who could provide a valid proof, though the offer has now elapsed. While a heuristic argument, which relies on the probability distribution of prime numbers, offers insight into the conjecture's likelihood of validity, it falls short of providing an ironclad guarantee of its truth.

The advent of modern computing has emerged as a beacon of progress. With vast computational power at their disposal, contemporary mathematicians like Dr. Tomàs Oliveira e Silva have achieved a remarkable feat—verification of the conjecture for every even number up to an astonishing 4 quintillion, a number with 18 zeroes.

Lazar Paroski’s Goldbach Conjecture Document on Maple Learn offers an avenue for users of all skill levels to delve into one of the oldest open problems in the world of math. By simply opening this document and inputting an even number, a Maple algorithm will swiftly reveal Goldbach’s partition (the pair of primes that add to your number), or if you’re lucky it could reveal that you have found a number that disproves the conjecture once and for all

A salesperson wishes to visit every city on a map and return to a starting point. They want to find a route that will let them do this with the shortest travel distance possible. How can they efficiently find such a route given any random map?

Well, if you can answer this, the Clay Mathematics Institute will give you a million dollars. It’s not as easy of a task as it sounds.

The problem summarized above is called the Traveling Salesman Problem, one of a category of mathematical problems called NP-complete. No known efficient algorithm to solve NP-complete problems exists. Finding a polynomial-time algorithm, or proving that one could not possibly exist, is a famous unsolved mathematical problem.

Over years of research, many advances have been made in algorithms that can solve the problem, not in perfectly-efficiently time, but quickly enough for many smaller examples that you can hardly notice. One of the most significant Traveling Salesman Problem solutions is the Concorde TSP Solver. This program can find optimal routes for maps with thousands of cities.

Traveling Salesman Problems can also be used outside of the context of visiting cities on a map. They have been used to generate gene mappings, microchip layouts, and more.

The power of the legendary Concorde TSP Solver is available in Maple. The TravelingSalesman command in the GraphTheory package can find the optimal solution for a given graph. The procedure offers a choice of the recently added Concorde solver or the original pure-Maple solver.

To provide a full introduction to the Traveling Salesman Problem, we have created an exploratory document in Maple Learn! Try your hand at solving small Traveling Salesman examples and comparing different paths. Can you solve the problems as well as the algorithm can?

we have recieved lots of great sumissions, but we want your great submission and now you have more time.

The deadline for submissions to the Art Gallery and Showcase for the 2023 Maple Conference is rapidly approaching. We really want to see your art! It doesn't have to be incredibly impressive or sophisticated, we just want to see what our community can create! If you've been working on something or have a great idea, you still have a few days to get it together to submit.

Submission can be made by email to gallery@maplesoft.com but be sure to visit the visit our Call for Creative Works for details on the format of the submission.

What are planes? Are they aircraft that soar through the sky, or flat surfaces you'd come across in your geometry textbook? By definition yes, but they can be so much more. In the world of math, observing a system of equations with three variables allows us to plot them as planes in ℝ³. As we plot planes, these geometric entities can start intersecting, creating captivating visualizations. However, the intersection of planes is not just an abstract mathematical concept present only in the classroom. Throughout our daily lives, we come into contact with intersecting planes everywhere. Have you ever noticed the point where two walls and the floor in your room converge? That’s an intersection in its simplest form! And the line where the pages of a book are bound together? Another everyday intersection!
 

Room image: https://unsplash.com/photos/0H-aJ06IZw4, Book image: https://unsplash.com/photos/6H9H-tYPUQQ 

However, just seeing plane intersections is but a tiny piece of the puzzle. After all, how can we delve into the intriguing properties of these intersections without quantifying them? Enter the focus of Maple Learn's newest collection: Intersection of Planes. Not sure about how you can identify the different scenarios that three planes can form in ℝ³? Check out the eight documents that provide complete walk-throughs for solving each individual case that three planes can form! With cases ranging from three parallel and distinct planes to three planes forming a triangular prism to three planes intersecting in a line, you’ll gain a mastery of understanding the intersection of planes by the time you’re finished with the examples.

Once you’ve gained an understanding of how to identify and solve the cases that three planes can form, it’s time to test your knowledge! This quiz-like document takes you through the steps of solving for the intersection of three planes with guiding questions and comprehensive feedback. Once you successfully find the intersection or identify the case, you’ll be provided with an interactive 3D plot that allows you to see what the math you’ve been doing looks like. This opportunity to solve any of the 16 different possible systems of equations allows you to prove that you’re on another level!

With your newfound mastery of solving systems of equations, check out similar documents in the recently added linear algebra collection! Try calculating the volume of a parallelepiped or deriving the formula for the distance between a point and a plane. 

What are you waiting for? Gear up and join us on Maple Learn today! Whether you're diving deep into the world of linear algebra or merely dabbling, there’s a world of discovery waiting for you.

Jill is walking on some trails after a long and stressful day at work. Suddenly, her stress seems to be lifted off her shoulders as her attention gets drawn to nature's abundant beauty. From the way the flowers blossom to the way the leaves grow on their stems, it is stunning.

When many think of mathematics, what comes to mind is often numbers, equations, and calculations. While these aspects are essential to math, they only scratch the surface of a profoundly creative discipline. Mathematics is much more than mere numerical manipulation. It is a rich and intricate realm that influences everything from art and science to philosophy and technology.

Just as Jill was stunned by the beauty of nature, you too can be amazed by the beauty of math! The golden ratio is one math concept that garners a reputation for being particularly beautiful, perhaps due to its presence in different parts of nature. You can explore it through some Maple Learn documents.

Check out the Fibonacci sequence and golden ratio document to better understand the golden ratio and its relationships. Perhaps, once you have a good grasp on the basics, you would like to check out the golden spiral document. Notice how the spiral that results resembles the outline of a nautilus shell and the arms of a spiral galaxy!

Nautilus shell image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NautilusCutawayLogarithmicSpiral.jpg -- Spiral galaxy image: https://www.cnet.com/pictures/natures-patterns-golden-spirals-and-branching-fractals/

Next, you may want to understand why the golden ratio is considered the most irrational number. You can do that by checking out the most irrational number document. Or you could explore this golden angle document to see how the irrationality of the number can be used to reproduce structures found in nature, such as the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower's centre!

Sunflower image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helianthus_whorl.jpg
 

That's all for this post! No worries, though. Maple Learn has hundreds of documents that can aid you in exploring the abundant beauty of math. Enjoy!

It’s finally here. The mystical treasure that has long been rumoured to lie deep within the labyrinthine halls of Maple Learn is within your grasp at last. The ordeals ahead are treacherous, and most who have ventured in have never returned… but, armed with nothing but your wits and your curiosity, you know you’re prepared to conquer the trials that await you. Can you be the first to uncover the secrets of Maple Learn?

Surprise! We here at Maplesoft have decided to become game developers. Okay, maybe not really, but we do have one game that we’re excited to be sharing with you all. Introducing: The Treasure of Maple Learn. This series of documents mimics the style of a text-based adventure game, and takes you through a series of puzzles that challenge you to discover for yourself all of what Maple Learn has to offer. It was originally created by myself and a team of other co-op students during the 2021 Maplesoft Hackathon, and I’m very excited to be releasing this updated and polished version of the game. Finally, it’s time to set out on your quest to discover the legendary treasure that lurks within Maple Learn… if you dare.

If you don’t dare, don’t worry, we have other options. You can also check out our new video on Getting Started with Maple Learn, which takes you through everything you need to know to become a Maple Learn expert. And if that’s not enough learning Maple Learn for you, we also have an extensive collection of How-To documents. Want an in-depth look at how to use the plot window? How about an exploration of how to work with linear algebra? Or maybe you want to unleash your artistic side? We’ve got you covered.

So if you’re just getting started with Maple Learn and are looking for a tutorial, you’ve got options—we’ve got a quick video overview, tons of collections of in-depth documentation, and a quest through the treacherous depths of Maple Learn to uncover the secrets that lie within. Pick your poison! (But maybe watch out for literal poison in that labyrinth.)

The concept of “Maple Learn art” debuted on the MaplePrimes blog in December 2021.  Since then, we’ve come a long way with new Maple Learn features and ever-growing creative minds.  Creating art using mathematical expressions and shapes is a great way to hone both your mathematical skills and your creativity, and is the perfect break from a bout of studying or the like.

I started my own Maple Learn art journey over one year ago.  Let’s see how one’s art can improve over time using new and advanced features!

Art with Shapes, March 2022

This pi-themed pie is simple and cute, but could use some additional features:

Adding Shaded() around Maple Learn shape commands colors them in!

Fun fact: I hand-picked all of the coordinates for that pi symbol.  It was an arduous but rewarding process.  Nowadays, I recommend a new method.  When you create a table in Maple Learn with two number columns, the values are plotted as points.  These points can be clicked and dragged across the plot window, and the table updates automatically to display the new coordinates.  How can you use this to make art?

1. Create a table as described above.
2. Move the points with your mouse to create an outline of the desired shape.
3. Use the coordinates from your table in your geometry command.

Let’s apply these techniques in a newer piece: a full recreation of the spaghetti emoji!

Art with Shapes, August 2023

Would you look at that?!  Fully-shaded colors, a background, and lines of spaghetti noodles that weren’t painstakingly guesstimated combine to create a wonderfully improved piece of art.

Art with Animation, March 2022

Visit the document to see its animation.  Animation is an invaluable feature in Maple Learn, frequently utilized to observe how changing variables affect functions or model a concept.  We’ve harnessed its power for animated artwork!  This animation is cute, using parametric functions and more to change the image as the animation variable changes.  Like the previous piece, it’s missing a background, and the leaves overlap the stem awkwardly in some places.

Art with Animation, August 2023

This piece has a simple background made with a large black square, but it enhances the overall effect.

The animation here comes from piecewise functions, which display different values based on a given criterion.  In this case, the criterion is the current value of the animation variable.

There are 32 individual polygons in this image (including 8 really tiny ones along the edges!) and 8 rainbow colors.  Each color is associated with a different piecewise function, and displays four random squares in that color in each frame of the animation.

This image isn’t that much more advanced than the animated flower, but I think the execution has vastly improved.

Whether you’ve been following these blog posts since December 2021 or are new to Maple Learn, we hope you give Maple Learn art a try.

And don’t forget that Maple is also a goldmine of artistic potential.  Maple’s bountiful collection of packages such as Fractals, ColorTools, plottools and more are great places to start for math that is as aesthetically pleasing as it is informative.

This week, our staff participated in a series of art challenges using either Maple Learn or Maple itself, each featuring a suggested theme and suggested mathematical content.  Check out the challenges and some of our employees’ entries below, and try out a challenge for yourself!

Tuesday’s Art Theme: Pasta

Mathematical Content: Shapes

Example: Lazar Paroski’s spiraling take on spaghetti

Wednesday’s Art Theme: Nature

Mathematical Content: Fractals

Example: John May’s Penrose tiling landscape (in Maple!)

Thursday’s Art Theme: Disco

Mathematical Content: Animation

Example: Paulina Chin’s disco ball (in Maple!)

Friday’s Art Theme: Space

Mathematical Content: Color

Example: that’s today!  Who knows what our staff will create…?

We hope these prompts have inspired you! If you create some art you’re really proud of, consider submitting it to be featured in the 2023 Maple Conference’s Creative Works Showcase.

Space. The final frontier. A frontier we wouldn’t stand a chance of exploring if it weren’t for the work of one Albert Einstein and his theories of special relativity. After all, how are we supposed to determine at what speed an alien spaceship is traveling towards Earth if we can’t understand how Newtonian physics break down at high velocities? That is precisely the question that this Maple MathApp asks. Using the interactive tool, you can see how the relative velocities change depending on your reference point. Just what you need for the next time you see a UFO rocketing through the sky!

But what if you don’t have the MathApp on hand when the aliens visit? (So rare to travel anywhere without a copy of Maple on you, I know, but it could happen.) You’ll have to just learn more about special relativity so that you can make those calculations on the fly. And luckily, we have just what you need to do that: our new Maple Learn collection on modern physics, created by Lazar Paroski. Still not quite sure how to wrap your head around the whole thing? Check out this document on the postulates of special relativity, which explains and demonstrates some of the fundamentals of special relativity with lively animations.

Once you’ve gotten familiar with the basics, it’s time to get funky. This document on time dilation shows how two observers looking at the same event from different frames of reference can measure different times for that event. And of course once you start messing with time, everything gets weird. For an example, check out this document on length contraction, which explains how observers in different frames of reference can measure different lengths for the same moving object. Pretty wild stuff.