Introduction

Abstract

Maple is a mathematical manipulation language. (The name can be said to be derived from some combination of the letters in the preceding phrase, but in fact it was simply chosen as a name with a Canadian identity.) The type of computation provided by Maple is known by various other names such as algebraic manipulation, symbolic computation, or computer algebra. A basic feature of such a language is the ability to, explicitly or implicitly, leave the elements of a computation unevaluated. A corresponding feature is the ability to perform simplification of expressions and other transformations involving unevaluated elements. For example, $> f: = {x^{ \wedge }}3 - {y^{\wedge }}3$ $f: = {x^{3}} - {y^{3}}$ > factor(f); $\left( {x - y}\right)\left( {{x^{2}} + xy + {y^{2}}} \right)$