Maple users often want to write a derivative evaluated at a point using Leibniz notation, as a matter of presentation, with appropriate variables and coordinates. For instance:

Now, Maple uses the D operator for evaluating derivatives at a point, but this can be a little clunky:

p := D[1,2,2,3](f)(a,b,c);

q := convert( p, Diff );

u := D[1,2,2,3](f)(5,10,15);

v := convert( u, Diff );

How can we tell Maple, programmatically, to print this in a nicer way? We amended the print command (see below) to do this. For example:

print( D[1,2,2,3](f)(a,b,c), [x,y,z] );

print( D[1,2,2,3](f)(5,10,15), [x,y,z] );

print( 'D(sin)(Pi/6)', theta );

Here's the definition of the custom version of print:

# Type to check if an expression is a derivative using 'D', e.g. D(f)(a) and D[1,2](f)(a,b).

TypeTools:-AddType(   

        'Dexpr',      

        proc( f )     

               if op( [0,0], f ) <> D and op( [0,0,0], f ) <> D then

                       return false;

               end if;       

               if not type( op( [0,1], f ), 'name' ) or not type( { op( f ) }, 'set(algebraic)' ) then

                       return false;

               end if;       

               if op( [0,0,0], f ) = D and not type( { op( [0,0,..], f ) }, 'set(posint)' ) then

                       return false;

               end if;       

               return true;          

        end proc      

):


# Create a local version of 'print', which will print expressions like D[1,2](f)(a,b) in a custom way,

# but otherwise print in the usual fashion.

local print := proc()


        local A, B, f, g, L, X, Y, Z;


        # Check that a valid expression involving 'D' is passed, along with a variable name or list of variable names.

        if ( _npassed < 2 ) or ( not _passed[1] :: 'Dexpr' ) or ( not passed[2] :: 'Or'('name','list'('name')) ) then

               return :-print( _passed );

        end if;


        # Extract important variables from the input.

        g := _passed[1]; # expression

        X := _passed[2]; # variable name(s)

        f := op( [0,1], g ); # function name in expression

        A := op( g ); # point(s) of evaluation


        # Check that the number of variables is the same as the number of evaluation points.

        if nops( X ) <> nops( [A] ) then

               return :-print( _passed );

        end if;


        # The differential operator.

        L := op( [0,0], g );


        # Find the variable (univariate) or indices (multivariate) for the derivative(s).

        B := `if`( L = D, X, [ op( L ) ] );


        # Variable name(s) as expression sequence.

        Y := op( X );


        # Check that the point(s) of evaluation is/are distinct from the variable name(s).

        if numelems( {Y} intersect {A} ) > 0 then

               return :-print( _passed );

        end if;


        # Find the expression sequence of the variable names.

        Z := `if`( L = D, X, X[B] );

       

        return print( Eval( Diff( f(Y), Z ), (Y) = (A) ) );


end proc:

Do you use Leibniz Notation often? Or do you have an alternate method? We’d love to hear from you!

Last year, I read a fascinating paper that presented evidence of an exoplanet, inferred through the “wobble” (or radial velocity) of the star it orbits, HD 3651. A periodogram of the radial velocity revealed the orbital period of the exoplanet – about 62.2 days.

I found the experimental data and attempted to reproduce the periodogram. However, the data was irregularly sampled, as is most astronomical data. This meant I couldn’t use the standard Fourier-based tools from the signal processing package.

I started hunting for the techniques used in the spectral analysis of irregularly sampled data, and found that the Lomb Scargle approach was often used for astronomical data. I threw together some simple prototype code and successfully reproduced the periodogram in the paper.

After some (not so) gentle prodding, Erik Postma’s team wrote their own, far faster and far more robust, implementation.

This new functionality makes its debut in Maple 2019 (and the final worksheet is here.)

From a simple germ of an idea, to a finished, robust, fully documented product that we can put in front of our users – that, for me, is incredibly satisfying.

That’s a minor story about a niche I’m interested in, but these stories are repeated time and time again.  Ideas spring from users and from those that work at Maplesoft. They’re filtered to a manageable set that we can work on. Some projects reach completion in under a year, while other, more ambitious, projects take longer.

The result is software developed by passionate people invested in their work, and used by passionate people in universities, industry and at home.

We always pack a lot into each release. Maple 2019 contains improvements for the most commonly used Maple functions that nearly everyone uses – such as solve, simplify and int – as well features that target specific groups (such as those that share my interest in signal processing!)

I’d like to to highlight a few new of the new features that I find particularly impressive, or have just caught my eye because they’re cool.

Of course, this is only a small selection of the shiny new stuff – everything is described in detail on the Maplesoft website.

Edgardo, research fellow at Maplesoft, recently sent me a recent independent comparison of Maple’s PDE solver versus those in Mathematica (in case you’re not aware, he’s the senior developer for that function). He was excited – this test suite demonstrated that Maple was far ahead of its closest competitor, both in the number of PDEs solved, and the time taken to return those solutions.

He’s spent another release cycle working on pdsolve – it’s now more powerful than before. Here’s a PDE that Maple now successfully solves.

Maplesoft tracks visits to our online help pages - simplify is well-inside the top-ten most visited pages. It’s one of those core functions that nearly everyone uses.

For this release, R&D has made many improvements to simplify. For example, Maple 2019 better simplifies expressions that contain powers, exponentials and trig functions.

Everyone who touches Maple uses the same programming language. You could be an engineer that’s batch processing some data, or a mathematical researcher prototyping a new algorithm – everyone codes in the same language.

Maple now supports C-style increment, decrement, and assignment operators, giving you more concise code.

We’ve made a number of improvements to the interface, including a redesigned start page. My favorite is the display of large data structures (or rtables).

You now see the header (that is, the top-left) of the data structure.

For an audio file, you see useful information about its contents.

I enjoy creating new and different types of visualizations using Maple's sandbox of flexible plots and plotting primitives.

Here’s a new feature that I’ll use regularly: given a name (and optionally a modifier), polygonbyname draws a variety of shapes.

In other breaking news, I now know what a Reuleaux hexagon looks like.

Since I can’t resist talking about another signal processing feature, FindPeakPoints locates the local peaks or valleys of a 1D data set. Several options let you filter out spurious peaks or valleys

I’ve used this new function to find the fundamental frequencies and harmonics of a violin note from its periodogram.

Speaking of passionate developers who are devoted to their work, Edgardo has written a new e-book that teaches you how to use tensor computations using Physics. You get this e-book when you install Maple 2019.

The new LeastTrimmedSquares command fits data to an equation while not being signficantly influenced by outliers.

In this example, we:

• Artifically generate a noisy data set with a few outliers, but with the underlying trend Y =5 X + 50
• Fit straight lines using CurveFitting:-LeastSquares and Statistics:-LeastTrimmedSquares

LeastTrimmedSquares function correctly predicts the underlying trend.

We try to make every release faster and more efficient. We sometimes target key changes in the core infrastructure that benefit all users (such as the parallel garbage collector in Maple 17). Other times, we focus on specific functions.

For this release, I’m particularly impressed by this improved benchmark for factor, in which we’re factoring a sparse multivariate polynomial.

On my laptop, Maple 2018 takes 4.2 seconds to compute and consumes 0.92 GiB of memory.

Maple 2019 takes a mere 0.27 seconds, and only needs 45 MiB of memory!

I’m a visualization nut, and I always get a vicarious thrill when I see a shiny new plot, or a well-presented application.

I was immediately drawn to this new Maple 2019 app – it illustrates the transition between day and night on a world map. You can even change the projection used to generate the map. Shiny!

So that’s my pick of the top new features in Maple 2019. Everyone here at Maplesoft would love to hear your comments!

It is my pleasure to announce the return of the Maple Conference! On October 15-17^th, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, we will gather a group of Maple enthusiasts, product experts, and customers, to explore and celebrate the different aspects of Maple.

Specifically, this conference will be dedicated to exploring Maple’s impact on education, new symbolic computation algorithms and techniques, and the wide range of Maple applications. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about the latest research, share experiences, and interact with Maple developers.

In preparation for the conference we are welcoming paper and extended abstract submissions. We are looking for presentations which fall into the broad categories of “Maple in Education”, “Algorithms and Software”, and “Applications of Maple” (a more extensive list of topics can be found here).

You can learn more about the event, plus find our call-for-papers and abstracts, here: https://www.maplesoft.com/mapleconference/

There have been several posts, over the years, related to visual cues about the values associated with particular 2D contours in a plot.

Some people ask or post about color-bars [1]. Some people ask or post about inlined labelling of the curves [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. And some post about mouse popup/hover-over functionality [1]., which got added as general new 2D plot annotation functionality in Maple 2017 and is available for the plots:-contourplot command via its contourlabels option.

Another possibility consists of a legend for 2D contour plots, with distinct entries for each contour value. That is not currently available from the plots:-contourplot command as documented. This post is about obtaining such a legend.

Aside from the method used below, a similar effect may be possible (possibly with a little effort) using contour-plotting approaches based on individual plots:-implicitplot calls for each contour level. Eg. using Kitonum's procedure, or an undocumented, alternate internal driver for plots:-contourplot.

Since I like the functionality provided by the contourlabels option I thought that I'd highjack that (and the _HOVERCONTENT plotting substructure that plot-annotations now generate) and get a relatively convenient way to get a color-key via the 2D plotting legend.  This is not supposed to be super-efficient.

Here below are some examples. I hope that it illustrates some useful functionality that could be added to the contourplot command. It can also be used to get a color-key for use with densityplot.

Download contour_legend_post.mw

Download Tensors_-_A_Complete_Guide.mw, or the pdf version with sections open: Tensors_-_A_Complete_Guide.pdf

Edgardo S. Cheb-Terrab
Physics, Differential Equations and Mathematical Functions, Maplesoft

Recently, my research team at the University of Waterloo was approached by Mark Ideson, the skip for the Canadian Paralympic men’s curling team, about developing a curling end-effector, a device to give wheelchair curlers greater control over their shots. A gold medalist and multi-medal winner at the Paralympics, Mark has a passion to see wheelchair curling performance improve and entrusted us to assist him in this objective. We previously worked with Mark and his team on a research project to model the wheelchair curling shot and help optimize their performance on the ice. The end-effector project was the next step in our partnership.

The use of technology in the sports world is increasing rapidly, allowing us to better understand athletic performance. We are able to gather new types of data that, when coupled with advanced engineering tools, allow us to perform more in-depth analysis of the human body as it pertains to specific movements and tasks. As a result, we can refine motions and improve equipment to help athletes maximize their abilities and performance. As a professor of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo, I have overseen several studies on the motor function of Paralympic athletes. My team focuses on modelling the interactions between athletes and their equipment to maximize athletic performance, and we rely heavily on Maple and MapleSim in our research and project development.

The end-effector project was led by my UW students Borna Ghannadi and Conor Jansen. The objective was to design a device that attaches to the end of the curler’s stick and provides greater command over the stone by pulling it back prior to release.  Our team modeled the end effector in Maple and built an initial prototype, which has undergone several trials and adjustments since then. The device is now on its 7^th iteration, which we felt appropriate to name the Mark 7, in recognition of Mark’s inspiration for the project. The device has been a challenge, but we have steadily made improvements with Mark’s input and it is close to being a finished product.

Currently, wheelchair curlers use a device that keeps the stone static before it’s thrown. Having the ability to pull back on the stone and break the friction prior to release will provide great benefit to the curlers. As a curler, if you can only push forward and the ice conditions aren’t perfect, you’re throwing at a different speed every time. If you can pull the stone back and then go forward, you’ve broken that friction and your shot is far more repeatable. This should make the game much more interesting.

For our team, the objective was to design a mechanism that not only allowed curlers to pull back on the stone, but also had a release option with no triggers on the curler’s hand. The device we developed screws on to the end of the curler’s stick, and is designed to rest firmly on the curling handle. Once the curler selects their shot, they can position the stone accordingly, slide the stone backward and then forward, and watch the device gently separate from the stone.

For our research, the increased speed and accuracy of MapleSim’s multibody dynamic simulations, made possible by the underlying symbolic modelling engine, Maple, allowed us to spend more time on system design and optimization. MapleSim combines principles of mechanics with linear graph theory to produce unified representations of the system topology and modelling coordinates. The system equations are automatically generated symbolically, which enables us to view and share the equations prior to a numerical solution of the highly-optimized simulation code.

The Mark 7 is an invention that could have significant ramifications in the curling world. Shooting accuracy across wheelchair curling is currently around 60-62%, and if new technology like the Mark 7 is adopted, that number could grow to 70 or 75%. Improved accuracy will make the game more enjoyable and competitive. Having the ability to pull back on the stone prior to release will eliminate some instability for the curlers, which can help level the playing field for everyone involved. Given the work we have been doing with Mark’s team on performance improvements, it was extremely satisfying for us to see them win the bronze medal in South Korea. We hope that our research and partnership with the team can produce gold medals in the years to come.

Throughout the course of a year, Maple users create wildly varying applications on all sorts of subjects. To mark the end of 2018, I thought I’d share some of the 2018 submissions to the Maple Application Center that I personally found particularly interesting.

Solving the 15-puzzle, by Curtis Bright. You know those puzzles where you have to move the pieces around inside a square to put them in order, and there’s only one free space to move into?  I’m not good at those puzzles, but it turns out Maple can help. This is one of collection of new, varied applications using Maple’s SAT solvers (if you want to solve the world’s hardest Sudoku, Maple’s SAT solvers can help with that, too).

Romeo y Julieta: Un clasico de las historias de amor... y de las ecuaciones diferenciales [Romeo and Juliet: A classic story of love..and differential equations], by Ranferi Gutierrez. This one made me laugh (and even more so once I put some of it in google translate, which is more than enough to let you appreciate the application even if you don’t speak Spanish). What’s not to like about modeling a high drama love story using DEs?

Prediction of malignant/benign of breast mass with DNN classifier, by Sophie Tan. Machine learning can save lives.

Hybrid Image of a Cat and a Dog, by Samir Khan. Signal processing can be more fun that I realized. This is one of those crazy optical illusions where the picture changes depending on how far away you are.

Beyond the 8 Queens Problem, by Yury Zavarovsky. In true mathematical fashion, why have 8 queens when you can have n?  (If you are interested in this problem, you can also see a different solution that uses SAT solvers.)

Gödel's Universe, by Frank Wang.  Can’t say I understood much of it, but it involves Gödel, Einstein, and Hawking, so I don’t need to understand it to find it interesting.

Download Physics-Updates.mw
 

Edgardo S. Cheb-Terrab
Physics, Differential Equations and Mathematical Functions, Maplesoft

Download The_Zassenhause_formula_and_the_Pauli_Matrices.mw

Edgardo S. Cheb-Terrab
Physics, Differential Equations and Mathematical Functions, Maplesoft

A common question to our tech support team is about completing the square for a univariate polynomial of even degree, and how to do that in Maple. We’ve put together a solution that we think you’ll find useful. If you have any alternative methods or improvements to our code, let us know!

restart;

# Procedure to complete the square for a univariate
# polynomial of even degree.

CompleteSquare := proc( f :: depends( 'And'( polynom, 'satisfies'( g -> ( type( degree(g,x), even ) ) ) ) ), x :: name )

       local a, g, k, n, phi, P, Q, r, S, T, u:

       # Degree and parameters of polynomial.
       n := degree( f, x ):
       P := indets( f, name ) minus { x }:

       # General polynomial of square plus constant.
       g := add( a[k] * x^k, k=0..n/2 )^2 + r:

       # Solve for unknowns in g.
       Q := indets( g, name ) minus P:

       S := map( expand, { solve( identity( expand( f - g ) = 0, x ), Q ) } ):

       if numelems( S ) = 0 then
              return NULL:
       end if:

       # Evaluate g at the solution, and re-write square term
       # so that the polynomial within the square is monic.

       phi := u -> lcoeff(op(1,u),x)^2 * (expand(op(1,u)/lcoeff(op(1,u),x)))^2:  
       T := map( evalindets, map( u -> eval(g,u), S ), `^`(anything,identical(2)), phi ):

       return `if`( numelems(T) = 1, T[], T ):

end proc:


# Examples.

CompleteSquare( x^2 + 3 * x + 2, x );
CompleteSquare( a * x^2 + b * x + c, x );
CompleteSquare( 4 * x^8 + 8 * x^6 + 4 * x^4 - 246, x );

m, n := 4, 10;
r := rand(-10..10):
for i from 1 to n do
       CompleteSquare( r() * ( x^(m/2) + randpoly( x, degree=m-1, coeffs=r ) )^2 + r(), x );
end do;

# Compare quadratic examples with Student:-Precalculus:-CompleteSquare()
# (which is restricted to quadratic expressions).

Student:-Precalculus:-CompleteSquare( x^2 + 3 * x + 2 );
Student:-Precalculus:-CompleteSquare( a * x^2 + b * x + c );

f := 5*x^4 - 70*x^3 + 365*x^2 - 840*x + 721;
g := CompleteSquare( f, x ); # 5 * ( x^2 - 7 * x + 12 )^2 + 1
h := evalindets( f, `*`, factor ); 4 * (x-3)^2 * (x-4)^2 + 1
p1 := plot( f, x=0..5, y=-5..5, color=blue ):
p2 := plots:-pointplot( [ [3,1], [4,1] ], symbol=solidcircle, symbolsize=20, color=red ):
plots:-display( p1, p2 );

The Joint Mathematics Meetings are taking place next week (January 16 – 19) in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. This will be the 102nd annual winter meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the 125th annual meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS).

Maplesoft will be exhibiting at booth #501 as well as in the networking area. Please stop by to chat with me and other members of the Maplesoft team, as well as to pick up some free Maplesoft swag or win some prizes.

This year we will be hosting a hands-on workshop on Maple: A Natural Way to Work with Math

This special event will take place on Thursday, January 17 at 6:00 -8:00 P.M. in the Holiday Ballroom 4 at the Hilton Baltimore.

There are also several other interesting Maple related talks:

MYMathApps Tutorials

MAA General Contributed Paper Session on Mathematics and Technology 

Wednesday January 16, 2019, 1:00 p.m.-1:55 p.m.

Room 323, BCC
Matthew Weihing*, Texas A&M University 
Philip B Yasskin, Texas A&M University 

The Logic Behind the Turing Bombe's Role in Breaking Enigma. 

MAA General Contributed Paper Session on Mathematics and Technology 

Wednesday January 16, 2019, 1:00 p.m.-1:55 p.m.
Room 323, BCC
Neil Sigmon*, Radford University 
Rick Klima, Appalachian State University 

On a software accessible database of faithful representations of Lie algebras. 

MAA General Contributed Paper Session on Algebra, I 

Wednesday January 16, 2019, 2:15 p.m.-6:25 p.m.
Room 348, BCC
Cailin Foster*, Dixie State University 
 

Discussion of Various Technical Strategies Used in College Math Teaching. 

MAA Contributed Paper Session on Open Educational Resources: Combining Technological Tools and Innovative Practices to Improve Student Learning, IV 

Friday January 18, 2019, 8:00 a.m.-10:55 a.m.
Room 303, BCC
Lina Wu*, Borough of Manhattan Community College-The City University of New York 
 

An Enticing Simulation in Ordinary Differential Equations that predict tangible results. 

MAA Contributed Paper Session on The Teaching and Learning of Undergraduate Ordinary Differential Equations 

Friday January 18, 2019, 1:00 p.m.-4:55 p.m.
Room 324, BCC
Satyanand Singh*, New York City College of Technology of CUNY 
 

An Effort to Assess the Impact a Modeling First Approach has in a Traditional Differential Equations Class. 

AMS Special Session on Using Modeling to Motivate the Study of Differential Equations, I 
Saturday January 19, 2019, 8:00 a.m.-11:50 a.m.

Room 336, BCC
Rosemary C Farley*, Manhattan College 
Patrice G Tiffany, Manhattan College 

If you are attending the Joint Math meetings this week and plan on presenting anything on Maple, please feel free to let me know and I'll update this list accordingly.

See you in Baltimore!

Daniel

Maple Product Manager

Over the holidays I reconnected with an old friend and occasional
chess partner who, upon hearing I was getting soundly thrashed by run
of the mill engines, recommended checking out the ChessTempo site.  It
has online tools for training your chess tactics.  As you attempt to
solve chess problems your rating is computed depending on how well you
do.  The chess problems, too, are rated and adjusted as visitors
attempt them.  This should be familar to any chess or table-tennis
player.  Rather than the Elo rating system, the Glicko rating system is
used.

You have a choice of the relative difficulty of the problems.
After attempting a number of easy puzzles and seeing my rating slowly
climb, I wondered what was the most effective technique to raise my
rating (the classical blunder).  Attempting higher rated problems would lower my
solving rate, but this would be compensated by a smaller loss and
larger gain.  Assuming my actual playing strength is greater than my
current rating (a misconception common to us patzers), there should be a
rating that maximizes the rating gain per problem.

The following Maple module computes the expected rating change
using the Glicko system.

Glicko := module()

export DeltaRating
    ,  ExpectedDelta
    ,  Pwin
    ;

    # Return the change in rating for a loss and a win
    # for player 1 against player2
    DeltaRating := proc(r1,rd1,r2,rd2)
    local E, K, g, g2, idd, q;

        q := ln(10)/400;
        g := rd -> 1/sqrt(1 + 3*q^2*rd^2/Pi^2);
        g2 := g(rd2);
        E := 1/(1+10^(-g2*(r1-r2)/400));
        idd := q^2*(g2^2*E*(1-E));

        K := q/(1/rd1^2+idd)*g2;

        (K*(0-E), K*(1-E));

    end proc:

    # Compute the probability of a win
    # for a player with strength s1
    # vs a player with strength s2.

    Pwin := proc(s1, s2)
    local p;
        p := 10^((s1-s2)/400);
        p/(1+p);
    end proc:

    # Compute the expected rating change for
    # player with strength s1, rating r1 vs a player with true rating r2.
    # The optional rating deviations are rd1 and rd2.

    ExpectedDelta := proc(s1,r1,r2,rd1 := 35, rd2 := 35)
    local P, l, w;
        P := Pwin(s1,r2);
        (l,w) := DeltaRating(r1,rd1,r2,rd2);
        P*w + (1-P)*l;
    end proc:

end module:

Assume a player has a rating of 1500 but an actual playing strength of 1700.  Compute the expected rating change for a given puzzle rating, then plot it.  As expected the graph has a peak.

Ept := Glicko:-ExpectedDelta(1700,1500,r2):
plot(Ept,r2 = 1000...2000);

Compute the optimum problem rating

fsolve(diff(Ept,r2));

                     {r2 = 1599.350691}

As your rating improves, you'll want to adjust the rating of the problems (the site doesn't allow that fine tuning). Here we plot the optimum puzzle rating (r2) for a given player rating (r1), assuming the player's strength remains at 1700.

Ept := Glicko:-ExpectedDelta(1700, r1, r2):
dEpt := diff(Ept,r2):
r2vsr1 := r -> fsolve(eval(dEpt,r1=r)):
plot(r2vsr1, 1000..1680);

Here is a Maple worksheet with the code and computations.

Glicko.mw

Later

After pondering this, I realized there is a more useful way to present the results. The shape of the optimal curve is independent of the user's actual strength. Showing that is trivial, just substitute a symbolic value for the player's strength, offset the ratings from it, and verify that the result does not depend on the strength.

Ept := Glicko:-ExpectedDelta(S, S+r1, S+r2):
has(Ept, S);
                    false

Here's the general curve, shifted so the player's strength is 0, r1 and r2 are relative to that.

r2_r1 := r -> rhs(Optimization:-Maximize(eval(Ept,r1=r), r2=-500..0)[2][]):
p1 := plot(r2_r1, -500..0, 'numpoints'=30);

Compute and plot the expected points gained when playing the optimal partner and your rating is r-points higher than your strength.

EptMax := r -> eval(Ept, [r1=r, r2=r2_r1(r)]):
plot(EptMax, -200..200, 'numpoints'=30, 'labels' = ["r","Ept"]);

When your playing strength matches your rating, the optimal opponent has a relative rating of

r2_r1(0);
                       -269.86

The expected points you win is

evalf(EptMax(0));
                       0.00956

Download Coherent_States_in_Quantum_Mechanics.mw

Edgardo S. Cheb-Terrab
Physics, Differential Equations and Mathematical Functions, Maplesoft
Editor, Computer Physics Communications

Recently I examined a piece of code of mine in an attempt to possibly convert it to another language as it is a numeric code and as such slower in Maple than I'd like it to run. In doing this I ran across the following strangeness, here reproduced in a minimum working example (file attached).

Consider this trivial integral:

x1:=Int(3.52*10^8, ti = 0 .. 1);
(4)

and also this one:

x2:=sin(2*Pi*x1);
(5)

I can then evaluate (4) and take sine(2Pi * the evaluation of (4)):

value(x1);
(6)

sin(2*Pi*(6));
(7)

Hmm... let's evaluate x2, which should be the same, right

value(x2);
0.00000556012229902952                                                              (8)

Oddly enough, it is not. Now the reason they are not 0 is due to round-off error (running the same sheet with Digits := 40 confirms that); but at the same time, (6) is in fact exact. More oddly, if I wrap the input leading to (7) in evalf() then it outputs 0., i.e. exact and correct. I suspect the problem must lie in the different treatments of Pi in the three cases.

I am not ready to call this behaviour a bug since I can see that different ways of evaluating what is essentially the same expression leads to a diffferent round-off. What strikes me is the relatively large errors in this case. The sheet was run with Digits being 15 (my default set in my .mapleinint), I initially expected somewhat more accuracy in the sine function than a mere 6 digits or so. On second thought, however, what is going on seems to be that the evaluation of the integral must be numerical and the large no. of cycles limits the accuracy; if one replaces 3.52E8 (a float) with 352E6 (an exact number) then (7) becomes 0 (exact) while (8) remains at the above value. Why

evalf(sin(2*Pi*(6)))

yields an exact value I do not quite understand.

So, caveat computor once again. This example, while it may look contrived, actually arose from a real-world case I was dealing with (the 352E6 is a frequency in Hz, in my actual application it can vary in time therefore the integration to get the no. of cycles in a given time interval). One annoyance here is that the "right" way to do this is not obvious, at least not to me.

M.D.

integration_test.mw