I’m thrilled to introduce the updated Q&A Cards Creator! Michael Barnett had created the original Flash Cards Creator, inspired by the quiz creators in the Maple Learn gallery. I added some of the features (mentioned later in this post) that will help you use this tool to make more comprehensive quizzes. Students can use the creator to quiz themselves before a test, and instructors can integrate more practice quizzes into their lesson plans. One feature I particularly love is the ability to link full solutions to the back of each card, allowing users to understand the answers in depth (as shown in this document). Additionally, you can link a general solutions package (as seen here) if individual solutions aren’t necessary for each question. Below is an example of what the Q&A cards can look like from the users point of view.
This creator is a great example of the Maple Learn documents you can create through scripting in Maple. With a single script, you can create an infinite amount of content and quizzes. If you are interested in Maple scripting, here is a link to the Q&A cards script. If this script looks intimidating, feel free to check out this blog post on the basics of Maple scripting!


If you are interested in creating your own Q&A quiz, you can go to this document to get started. If you get stuck at any point creating your card set, check out the instructions included in the document for clarification. We hope you enjoy creating some quizzes with this document!

We have just released an update to Maple. Maple 2024.1 includes improvements to the math engine, PDF export, the Physics package, command completion, and more. As always, we recommend that all Maple 2024 users install this update. In particular, please note that this update includes fixes to ODESteps and simplifying integrals, as reported on Maple Primes. Thanks for helping us, and other users, by letting us know!

At the same time, we have also released an update to MapleSim. MapleSim 2024.1.1 includes improvements to FMU import/export, plotting, co-simulation, and more, as well as enhancements to the Web Handling Library.

These updates are available through Tools>Check for Updates in Maple or MapleSim, and are also available from the Download Product Updates section of our web site, where you can find more details.

It can happen when an operation is interrupted by  that Maple does not return to  and still shows .

This can give the false impression that the Maple server in charge of the evaluation did not get the message to stop whatever it was doing.

By giving Maple an impossible task to solve analytically

f1 := x1 - x1*sin(x1 + 5*x2) - x2*cos(5*x1 - x2);
f2 := x2 - x2*sin(5*x1 - 3*x2) + x1*cos(3*x1 + 5*x2);
solve({f1, f2});

I have noticed in the Windows Task Manager that freeing allocated memory can take much longer than one might think.

In one case it took 30 minutes to free 24 Gb of total allocated memory (21 Gb of it in RAM/physical memory). In this case the interrupt button became active (turned from grey to red ) two times and memory continued piling up  again.

Lessons learned for me:

• The task manager is not only a valuable indicator for task activity but also for the interruption/memory freeing process.
• Before killing a whole Maple session and potentially losing the last state of a worksheet it can pay off to wait and repeatedly interrupt an operation.

Suggestion: When the maple server gets an interrupt request, it could report to the GUI that it is in an interruption state and is no longer evaluating input. For example changing the message in the status bar from Evaluating... to Interrupting...

The original app center was excellent, they were .. "finessed" so to speak.  Then they changed it (like so many websites today most are clunky and they're all terrible, they don't work well, and I'm not just singling out maplesoft)  Most websites that are finely tuned are most likely based on old school programming, just recall the old days of mapleprimes - the forum was nicely done - but that's a debate for later. Now to the nitty gritty.

I did a search at maplesoft app center of a particular author, and I know he has at least 20 applications.  Only 3 came up, and the last app entry said more apps by this author but it kept disappearing and I kept getting thrown back to application #1 all the meanwhile looking like I'm scrolling further down in the list. 

Maybe this is browser issue?  I'm using firefox.  Maybe Microsoft Edge works better? 

Plots of physical quantities has significantly improved with Maple 2022. The updated useunits option makes unit conversion errors in plots very unlikely. A lot of time is saved when creating plots of physical quantities where values and units must be correct.

One final source of user errors remains: The manual entry of incorrect units in labels.

Below is a way to avoid such errors by computing labels with units for three prevalent axis labeling schemes.

Other desireable labels are given as a suggestion for future plot label enhancements where plot commands could provide formating functionality.

The rendering on this website adds double brakets ⟦ ⟧ wherever units are used. You have to open the document to see how Maple renders.

Simple plot example: Solar irradiance in space (1) (2) This plot has inconsistent axis labeling: •  The vertical axis has units but no name •  The horizontal axis has a name and units but they are not easily distinguishable. Misinterpretation is possible. Due to the close spacing the label could be read as a product of the dimension "time squared" (the time t times hours h is of the dimension time squared). Or the reader confounds name and units. (The use of italic fonts for names and roman fonts for units might not be noticeable and is a convention that is not used everywhere.)   The above labeling should be improved for communication, documentation or publication purposes.   A quick attempt using strings and the options useuints and labels. Axes are now consistent and can be interpreted unambiguously. Formatting can still be improved.   Unfortunately, using the options useunits (for unit conversion) and labels this way introduces a new source of user error when labels are entered with the wrong units.   A way to address this and to ensure unit error-free plotting of expressions of physical quantities is the following:   Step1: Define two lists, one for the units to display and the other for the names to display (3) Step2: Compute labels from the lists This step avoids the labeling error: No manual entry of units in labels required. (4)   Dimensionless labels  Double brackets Parenthesis The axis values equal physical quantities divided by their units. The algebraic equation , for example, is physically speaking correct. Most functions of Maple can process dimensionless expression of the kind  if G is given with appropriate physical units. This way of using physical quantities is consistent with ISO 80000.   Used in Maple to enter units in 2D-Math input mode Can be confounded with functional notation. Units are therefore often written as a whole word (e.g. seconds instead of s).     The time to produce the above three plots was about 10 Minutes. The most part was spent to get the typesetting of the second and third plot correct.   What takes significant more time (more a question of hours when Typesetting is used for the first time) are   Labels with or  formatting.   This formatting might be preferred but is unfortunately again not free from user errors. (I would probably use it if there was a simple and safe way). (5)       Remarks •  For two reasons, I have not given an example with the often used square brackets [ ] because:          Maple uses square brackets already for lists and indexing purposes,     and ISO 80000 uses square brackets as an operator that extracts the unit from a physical quantity (e.g.       ). •  Adding a unit to each value at axes ticks would definitely be a nice labeling feature for simple units. •  Programmatically analyzing the units defined in list  above and converting them in a generic way to a typesetting structure is not possible with a few high-level commands.   •  For inline quotients like in , an additional backslash must be entered in 2D-Math: \/   (6)      This will not prevent evaluation to a normal quotient but the input can be used to create an atomic variable (select with mouse -> 2-D Math -> Atomic Variable) (7)      This makes labeling much easier as compared to typesetting commands (compare to the above statements). (8) In any case it is a good idea to read ?plot,typesetting before experimenting with typesetting.

Axes_with_unit_labels.mw

My personal preference is for dimensionless labels.

Note:

The solution to avoid labeling errors works only for Maple 2022 and higher.

Some plot commands do not support plotting with units, or they do not fully support it yet.

I was playing around with plotting volumes of revolution for calculus.  My opinion is that the defaults for Student[Calculus1][VolumeOfRevolution] could be improved by a couple simple changes.  My hope is that the people here can make my plots better to give Maplesoft a good idea of how to change the defaults.  

The standard code and output are

Download Volum_rev_2023_trial1.mw

Changing the surface style to patch and the surfce colors to different colors creates a plot that I find easier to interpret.

Download Volum_rev_2023_trial2.mw

What do you think about getting the defaults changed?  I hope someone can give better suggestions for the plot defaults.

Perhaps you could consider a Coding theory Package.  I'm working on Coding theory at the moment.

Maple introduced "Copy as LaTeX" a few versions ago and I have used this feature exensively when it suddenly stopped working.

After som experiments I found the root cause and easy (but irritating) workaround for OSX

Problem:

"Copy as LaTeX" suddenly stops working ("Copy as MathML" still works fine)

Cause:

This problem appears if in “Display Setting”-tab in settings dialogue the “Input display” is set to “Maple Notation”

In that case all attempts on “Copy as LaTeX” will be a null-function and not move anything at all into the copy buffer.

The “Copy as MathML” is not affected by this in the same way.

I have confirmed this on OSX in Maple versions 2022, 2023, and 2024

Workaround:

Adjusting “Display Setting”-tab in settings dialogue so that the “Input display” is set to “2-D Math” and “Apply Globally” makes it work again.

A bit annoying as a prefer the maple notation input and I cannot have this setting if I want the copy to latex to work.

Note:

in OSX this can also be fixed by removing the Maple preferences file and letting Maple restore it.

~/Library/Preferences/Maple/2023/Maple Preferences

Edit: Added 2024 as affected version.

I have been working in the building construction industry for more than 30 years, and one of the big things which has been coming up is parametric design.

While every major big software company has come up with its own package (Bentley with Generative Components, Autodesk with Dynamo), there is one software now that has won over all them - Grasshopper 3D.

Nowadays all major software products are trying to write bidirectional links to Grasshopper. Inhouse we do have Tekla on the BIM side and FEM-Design on the calculation side where both are capable to link to Grasshopper.

Grasshopper itself is also capable of running Python code, though in a reduced kind of way.

I would very much like to see Maple to have a Grasshopper link, probably achievable through Python.

At least Maplesoft should have a quick look at it, to see if this is possible or not.

MapleFlow is showing the exact same icon in the taskbar as Maple when both are open.  Be nice if they were slightly different.

Maple 2023: The colorbar option for contour plots does not work when used with the Explore command. See the example below.

No_colorbar_when_exploring_contour_plots.mw
 

The inverse problem of a mathematical question is often very interesting.

I'm glad to see that Maple 2023 has added several new graph operations. The GraphTheory[ConormalProduct], GraphTheory[LexicographicProduct], GraphTheory[ModularProduct] and GraphTheory[StrongProduct] commands were introduced in Maple 2023.

In fact, we often encounter their inverse problems in graph theory as well. Fortunately, most of them can find corresponding algorithms, but the implementation of these algorithms is almost nonexistent.

I once asked a question involving the inverse operation of the lexicographic product.

• https://www.mapleprimes.com/questions/235863-An-Inverse-Problem-Of-Lexicographic

Today, I will introduce the inverse operation of line graph operations. (In fact, I am trying to approach these problems with a unified perspective.)

To obtain the line graph of a graph is easy, but what about the reverse? That is to say, to test whether the graph is a line graph. Moreover, if a graph  g is the line graph of some other graph h, can we find h? (Maybe not unique. **Whitney isomorphism theorem tells us that if the line graphs of two connected graphs are isomorphic, then the underlying graphs are isomorphic, except in the case of the triangle graph K_3 and the claw K_{1,3}, which have isomorphic line graphs but are not themselves isomorphic.)

Wikipedia tells us that there are two approaches, one of which is to check if the graph contains any of the nine forbidden induced subgraphs. 

Beineke's forbidden-subgraph characterization:  A graph is a line graph if and only if it does not contain one of these nine graphs as an induced subgraph.

This approach can always be implemented, but it may not be very fast. Another approach is to use the linear time algorithms mentioned in the following article. 

• Roussopoulos, N. D. (1973), "A max {m,n} algorithm for determining the graph H from its line graph G", Information Processing Letters, 2 (4): 108–112, doi:10.1016/0020-0190(73)90029-X, MR 0424435

Or: 

•   Lehot, Philippe G. H. (1974), "An optimal algorithm to detect a line graph and output its root graph", Journal of the ACM, 21 (4): 569–575, doi:10.1145/321850.321853, MR 0347690, S2CID 15036484.

SageMath can do that: 

   root_graph()

Return the root graph corresponding to the given graph.

    is_line_graph()

Check whether a graph is a line graph.

For example, K_{2,2,2,2} is not the line graph of any graph.

K2222 = graphs.CompleteMultipartiteGraph([2, 2, 2, 2])
C=K2222.is_line_graph(certificate=True)[1]
C.show() # Containing the ninth forbidden induced subgraph.

Another Sage example for showing that the complement of the Petersen graph is the line graph of K_5.

P = graphs.PetersenGraph()
C = P.complement()
sage.graphs.line_graph.root_graph(C, verbose=False)

(Graph on 5 vertices, {0: (0, 1), 1: (2, 3), 2: (0, 4), 3: (1, 3), 4: (2, 4), 5: (3, 4), 6: (1, 4), 7: (1, 2), 8: (0, 2), 9: (0, 3)})

Following this line of thought, can Maple gradually implement the inverse operations of some standard graph operations? 

Here are some examples:

•   CartesianProduct
•   TensorProduct
•   ConormalProduct
•   LexicographicProduct
•   ModularProduct
•   StrongProduct
•   LineGraph
•  GraphPower

I did not see such a post for 2023 so I am starting one.

What is your 3 top bug fixes or improvements  you would like to see in Maple 2023? 

Here are mine

1. Fix timelimit so that it completes at or near the time requested and not hang or take 10 hrs when asked to timeout after say 30 seconds.
2. Fix the large amount of server crashes and the many random hangs when running large computation that takes long time. i.e. Make Maple more robust.
3. Allow the user to remove output from worksheet while it is still running (Evaluate->Remove output from worksheet)

Maple is a nice language and has many nice functions. But it is the usability part of Maple that leaves many bad impressions because of these things that should really have been fixed by now given how long  Maple software have been around.

Transfer functions are normally not used with units. Involving units when deriving transfer functions can help identify unit inconsistencies and reduce the likelihood of unit conversion errors.

Maple is already a great help in not having to do this manually. However, the final step of simplification still requires manual intervention, as shown in this example.

Download Collecting_and_expanding_units.mw

In an old post, vv reported a bug in simpl/max, which has been "fixed" in Maple 2018. However, it seem that such repairs are not complete enough.
For example, suppose it is required to find the (squared) distance between the origin and a point on x³ - x + y² = ⅓ which is closest to the origin. In other words, one needs to minimize x²＋y² among the points on this curve, i.e., 

extrema(x^2 + y^2, {x^3 + y^2 - x = 1/3}, {x, y}, 's'); # in exact form

Unfortunately, an identical error message appears again: 

Download tryHarder.mws

How about changing the values of parameter ?

for a from -3 by 3/27 to 3 do
    try
        extrema(x^2 + y^2, {x^3 + y^2 - x = a}, {x, y}); 
    catch:
        print(a); 
    end;
od;
                               -1
                               --
                               3 

                               -2
                               --
                               9 

                               -1
                               --
                               9 

                               1
                               -
                               9

                               2
                               -
                               9

                               1
                               -
                               3

By the way, like extrema, Student[MultivariateCalculus]:-LagrangeMultipliers also executes the Lagrange Multiplier method, but strangely, 

Student[MultivariateCalculus][LagrangeMultipliers](y^2 + x^2, [x^3 + y^2 - x - 1/3], [x, y], output = plot):

does not cause any errors.