Hello all ... FYI, our site master Will Spaetzel is getting married this weekend. Please join me in congratulating him and his new bride Laura-Lee on their new life together! Many happy wishes to you two! The bad news is, during his absence (for a couple of weeks), some technical issues with this site may be a bit slower in resolving. We have back-up editors for Will but Will has special talents that are hard to match. Thanks for your patience. Tom 4.

On Monday, Aug. 13, I will be at a big optimization conference at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. It's the joint International Conference on Continuous Optimization (ICCOPT) and Modeling and Optimization: Theory and Applications (MOPTA) conference. I'll be running a session with three Maple-related talks given by Jan Bakus of Maplesoft, Andrew Curtis of the University of Western Ontario, and myself. If any of you are attending the conference (and I

Earlier today, I was re-reading an old post when I was inspired. The post asked how one could use typesetting rules to make the call of a procedure typeset as a binary operation. The example used in the post was something along the lines of: myproc(a,b); becomes a <symbol> b; Inspired by a response to that post, I started looking at the help page for the define command and doing some testing in Maple. I was ready to make a reply to that post, when I stumbled upon a mind-boggling error. In the time it's taken me to track down that error (and run various errands), the original post has vanished from my view. Perhaps it still exists somewhere, but for the life of me, I cannot find it; therefore, I post to the next most appropriate place to describe and discuss this shortcoming: This blog.

I, Andy Gijbels, added 2 new applications on www.maplesoft.com * Tower of Hanoi: Graphical solution (animation) * Double spring pendulum (animation) Feel free to rate or leave comments Andy

The MapleReader has been the source of a bit of confusion on MaplePrimes lately. Hopefully with this post, we can help clear up some of the questions that have come up about it. The MapleReader is, as Scott03 mentioned in his response during a separate thread, an extension of Maple 11 that allows an eBook file format called an 'mbook' to be read. A number of authors are currently in the process of converting their content to an mbook file format, to be distributed independently of Maple. The reason why it was included in Maple 11.01 is to allow our authors access to it and it's updates for authoring purposes.

This is to inform you that we are now shipping the newest version of Maple T.A. – Maple T.A. 3.0. Maple T.A. is an easy-to-use web-based system for creating tests and assignments, automatically assessing student responses and performance. It supports complex, free-form entry of mathematical equations and intelligent evaluation of responses, making it ideal for mathematics, science, or any course that requires mathematics. The new edition – Maple T.A. 3.0 – comes with increased flexibility in content creation, an enhanced user interface and improved grading and assessment capabilities

Maplesoft has now posted the 11.01 update for users running Maple 11. You can download the update here . As the website mentions, this update includes improvements in the following areas:

• Differential Equations
• Maplets
• Physics Package updates
• Plot legends
• Vector Calculus

Who is entitled to Maple 11.01? Maple 11.01 is available to all users running Maple 11. If your Help>About Maple 11 dialog from the Standard Interface reads Maple 11.01, then you already have the update and no further action is required.

Could some one help me to plot this population balance equation ? see the attached file Download 4968_PBE.doc
View file details

In this episode Tom Lee takes some time to chat with three students working at Maplesoft for the summer. Laura Bradbury and Elyot Grant are both students at the University of Waterloo, respectively studying Computational Mathematics and Computer Science/Mathematics. Zach Daly is a Mathematics major at the University of Guelph. They discuss their opinions and experiences of using Maple in the student paradigm, and offer ideas for other students just starting out with Maple. Eithne Murray joins Tom to discuss Maple’s offerings and resources for students, and as always the latest news is covered, including information on the release of Vista-compatible Maple.

Maplesoft has just announced that a Windows Vista version of Maple 11 is now available. If you already own Maple 11, you may download the update for Vista at www.maplesoft.com/vista If you do not yet own Maple 11, you can either purchase a Boxed copy of download version of Maple 11 for Vista. The Vista version is available for download immediately, and boxed copies will contain the Windows Vista version of Maple at the end of the month.

I came across this interesting piece of reading, and thought I'd share it. It's an online version of the title, "The Mathematics of Gambling", by Dr. Edward Thorp. Although after browsing the web it was implied that Dr. Thorp was world renowned, I honestly knew nothing of him. You may also look him up on Wikipedia to find a link to this publication. Maybe some of you may find ways of applying Maple to some of the content in this book.

I've been laying low for a while now, finding new ways to break and repair Maple. With Maple11, I've found at least two disturbing bugs. The first is in implicitplot(): Maple no longer allows for variable ranges that evaluate to numbers. In Maple10, the command plots[implicitplot](x^3=y-x, x=-5..5, y=0..x); plots correctly, whereas the same command in Maple11 results in the error message: "Error, (in plots/implicitplot) invalid input: invalid range for second variable" The second bug is yet another bug in Maple's eternally bug-ridden Worksheet package. I do not know if this bug exists in previous versions of Maple, but there is a problem reading in nested quotes. To see this bug, do the following:

This was discovered in 1999, but I thought I might share it since Maple was involved. I think it was the largest composite fermat number discovered until that period. http://www.spd.dcu.ie/johnbcos/fermat.htm

Maplesoft just posted a new page giving more details on the upcoming version of Maple 11 for Windows Vista.

Maplesoft is currently working to ensure that Maple 11 is compatible with Windows Vista.

This web page contains information describing the current status of Maple 11 support for Vista and how you will be able to receive it when it becomes available. This information will be updated frequently as Maplesoft prepares to support Vista.
  The Vista version of Maple 11 will be available in the coming weeks.  Current Maple 11 users will be notified via email as soon as it is available.  Users can also check this page for updates.
  It will be available to all users running Maple 11 via a download that will be accessible through this web page. Users will need their purchase code used at the time of purchase to download the software. There will also be an option to order a CD copy.  More details to come.

In this episode, Tom Lee has an engaging conversation with Prof. Jack Weiner from the University of Guelph, about the impact of new math teaching tools and the appropriate use of emerging technology in the classroom. Jack is an award winning teacher and the author of "The Math Survival Kit”. Tom also sits down with Jan Bakus, a senior applications engineer at Maplesoft, to talk about BlockImporter and why someone in the simulation and modeling world should get excited about this new product. Click here to get the latest episode.