Have you heard the news yet? Maple Learn has had a major update! You may be wondering what this means, and what all the shiny new features are. Let’s go through them together.

First, as with many updates, we’ve improved performance with Maple Learn. Longer documents will load and perform faster, requiring less computing power for operations, and as a result your browser will be more responsive. Performance on Chromebooks is also improved.

Operations that previously would have needed to be refreshed now automatically calculate. Up until now, if you performed a menu operation on an expression and then changed the value of the expression, the result would turn orange to warn you that the result was no longer valid. You would then have to refresh manually. Now, this is no longer the case, the orange refresh button has been removed from Maple Learn, and results are never out of date.

The plot window, inline plots, and the context panel are all resizable now. This means that, for example, if you’re presenting using Maple Learn, you can enlarge the plot window to be the focus of the presentation, and shrink the context panel out of the way. Take a look at the difference, with our animation of it in action!

Sliders are also more flexible now! Bounds for sliders can be expressed in terms of variables or symbols like π. As well, you can now animate sliders, animating the graph. This allows for more interactivity in documents. See the old view on the left, and the new view on the right! Make sure to take a look at an example of the animated slider below the views as well. 

You can also now snap groups to a grid, allow them to automatically adjust their position as other groups adjust. This ensures better alignment of groups. It also allows you to easily rearrange elements of your documents.

Next, Maple Learn could handle 3D plots before, but now Maple Learn supports 3D parametric plots!

Finally, Maple Learn now has printing! This means you can print out your Maple Learn documents, with two options: to print just the canvas, or to print just the plot. This was requested by many users.

Multiple selection is also possible, allowing you to select multiple cells in a group by holding down the Ctrl/Command key while clicking and dragging.

That’s all for the updates in this version, but keep an eye out for our other updates! For more details, please take a look at our What’s New In Maple Learn page. We hope you enjoy our new features, and let us know if there are any more features you’d like to see in Maple Learn below.

Mathematical visualizations are beautiful representations of technical phenomena.  From the visual “perfection” of the golden spiral to the pattern generation of fractals, so many works of art can be boiled down to formulas and equations.  Such is the case with N.G. de Bruijn’s medallion and frieze patterns.  Given two starting values, two lines of mathematical formulae produce a recursive sequence of complex numbers.  We can associate these numbers with the four cardinal directions, following the steps on a plot to produce beautiful patterns.  The patterns are of two different types, the closed medallion or repeating frieze, depending on the starting values.

When you need a complex math visualization, Maple is a perfect place to go.  A demonstration of medallion and frieze patterns is available in the Maple Application Center, in which you can vary the starting values and watch the outcome change, along with more detailed background information.  However, there’s an even simpler way to explore this program with the help of Maple Learn.  Maple Learn has the same computational power as Maple, streamlined into an easy-to-use notebook style.  

Maple Learn includes many core features, and anything missing can be ported in through Maple.  This is done using Maple’s DocumentTools:-Canvas package.  The package contains the necessary procedures to convert Maple code into a “canvas”, which can be opened as a Maple Learn sheet.  This makes the whole document look cleaner and allows for easy sharing with friends.

The medallion and frieze document, along with the additional contextual information, is now also available in Maple Learn’s Document Gallery, home to over one thousand example documents covering calculus, geometry, physics, and more.

Who else likes art?  I love art; doodling in my notebook between projects and classes is a great way to pass the time and keep my creativity sharp.  However, when I’m working in Maple Learn, I don’t need to get out my book; I can use the plot window as my canvas and get my drawing fix right then and there.

We’ve done a few blog posts on Maple Learn art, and we’re back at it again in even bigger and better ways.  Maple Learn’s recent update added some useful features that can be incorporated into art, including the ability to resize the plot window and animate using automatically-changing variables.

Even with all the previous posts, you may be thinking, “What’s all this?  How am I supposed to make art in a piece of math software?”  Well, there is a lot of beauty to mathematics.  Consider beautiful patterns and fractals, equations that produce surprisingly aesthetically interesting outputs, and the general use of mathematics to create technical art.  In Maple Learn, you don’t have to get that advanced (heck, unless you want to).  Art can be created by combining basic shapes and functions into any image you can imagine.  All of the images below were created in Maple Learn!

There are many ways you can harness artistic power in Maple Learn.  Here are the resources I recommend to get you started.

1. I’ve recently made some YouTube videos (see the first one below) that provide a tutorial for Maple Learn art.  This series is less than 30 minutes in total, and covers - in three respective parts - the basics, some more advanced Learn techniques, and a full walkthrough of how I make my own art.
2. Check out the Maple Learn document gallery art collection for some inspiration, the how-to documents for additional help, and the rest of the gallery to see even more Maple Learn in action!

Once you’re having fun and making art, consider submitting your art to the Maple Conference 2022 Maple Learn Art Showcase.  The due date for submission is October 14, 2022.  The Conference itself is on November 2-3, and is a free virtual event filled with presentations, discussions, and more.  Check it out!

Have you ever wondered about the people behind the scenes at Maplesoft? What about the students who help design the products?

This week, we thought we’d introduce ourselves. We are some of the co-op students at Maplesoft, who in between studying believe that Math Matters.

I’ll go first. My name is Pleiades, I’m 21 and my pronouns are they/them. I am a product management intern at Maplesoft, working with Maple Learn and Maple Calculator. I'm not a math student, but my favorite thing about math is how expressive its language is. Mathematical equations and symbols can be used to express incredibly complex ideas, and even if you don't understand the sense, you can still read the "words". My favorite thing about working for Maplesoft is the flexibility. I have many different types of tasks, and I’m able to learn so many different things.

Keep reading, and find out more about my fellow students below!

Quality Assurance:

Hello, my name is Matilda (she/her)! I am 19 years old, studying physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo. I am part of the QA team here at Maplesoft, working as a quality assurance analyst co-op. I find math fascinating as it is a broad field that can be challenging, but also invokes a lot of creativity. As I am a new addition at Maplesoft, I am excited to work with the various Maple products.  I am looking forward to meeting new students and individuals, and to help grow not only myself but the company further. 

My name is Kat, I’m 20 and my pronouns are she/her. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and rock climbing. I am a QA analyst at Maplesoft, mostly working on Maple 2023. I am a student at UW studying mathematical physics and I would like to also minor in astronomy/astrophysics. My favorite thing about math is the objectivity of it, how there is a set structure and logical solution to any problem. I especially like calculus and trigonometry. I’m excited to be at Maplesoft because I will be learning everything about Maple from the inside perspective, which is used in many 300 and 400-level applied math courses that I will be taking at UW. I also really like the office environment and my coworkers.

Development:

Hey, my name is Paul C, I am 22 years old, and I am working as a Web and Mobile developer with Steve Metzger for the next 4 months. At the University of Waterloo, I study Mathematical Physics, though, I love the Computational Mathematics courses I’ve taken at UWaterloo. As for the world of Mathematics, I have always been fond of how everything can be thoroughly proven through basic arguments and logic. I am very excited to be working at Maplesoft, as I have for a long time been intrigued as to how Maple, Symbolab, and WolframAlpha function. So, this position is finally giving me the opportunity to truly explore how such software is developed.

Sales:

My name is Robin, I’m 21 years old and my pronouns are he/him. I am currently working as a Business Operations Analyst at Maplesoft, working with the sales department. I am a candidate of Bachelors of Business Administration at Wilfrid Laurier University with a minor in Economics and a specialization in Finance. My favorite thing about math is how it is present everywhere. Numbers help us understand world and Math helps us understand the number. My favorite part about working at Maplesoft is the extremely positive culture that we work in. Rather than competing with other people in the department, sales team has a very healthy approach towards work and are always there to help out each other.

Content Creation:

My name is Nikolas (he/him), I’m 20 years old and I’m an undergraduate physics student at the University of Waterloo. I’m part of the math content team at Maplesoft, focussing on creating new content for Maple Learn. The thing I like most about math is that while it may be a very objective discipline, it still involves an incredible amount of creativity. My favourite part of working at Maplesoft is the chance to share what I’ve learned about physics and math through Maple Learn content.

Good morning, afternoon, or evening!  I'm Miles (age 23, he/him), and I'm a UW mathematics student majoring in combinatorics and optimization and minoring in biology.  This term at Maplesoft, I work in content development for Maple Learn, which involves creating examples for the Maple Learn Document Gallery, working on special requests for users, and more.  My favorite thing about math is the fact that it is the analytical backbone of so many other areas of research.  You may think of biological research as performing experiments or medical trials, but behind the scenes, data entry and analysis are key to finding valuable conclusions and discoveries.  Biology is my particular favorite, of course, but there are countless fields of study with these mathematical aspects.

I'm looking forward to expanding my skillset and repertoire of tasks at Maplesoft.  This is my second term working here; last term I got my bearings as a content developer and am looking forward to so much more.  More advanced documents and workshops/presentations are on the horizon! :D

This is a friendly reminder that the deadline for submissions for this year's Maple Conference Creative Works Exhibit is fast approaching!

If you are looking for inspiration, you can take a look at the writeup of the works that were featured last year in this write up in the most recent issue of Maple Transations.

Also, don't forget that you can also submit art made in Maple Learn for a special exhibit alongside the main gallery.

I would appreciate any recommendation on these games and puzzles with maple implementation. The purpose is to inspire the math interest of children (say 16-) . Benefits from the assistance of Maple:

1. Learn and build the habit of math modelling: eg by playing with this n-queen problem - https://www.maplesoft.com/Applications/Detail.aspx?id=154482

Children can realize that, for many problems, modelling is doable for them - question formation in math/programming and finding all the constraints - while solution method is simply a small step if done by computer. This is already a big step forward for them and they may enjoy the modelling process. For more math-eager kids, they may start to explore the documentation behind the solution methods.

2. Learn the art of automatic proof by witnessing the efficiency gain by themselves - I don't think I have to explain such to the community here. I note Doron Zeilberger has collected many in such a spirit on his website.

I have read some in the Application Center (eg under the tag game) and by searching here by the "puzzle". Is there some more systematic collection/books? The applications I have seen is mostly on logical/combinatorial problems. Love to see the games/puzzles under a broader range of math fields good for children.

If you haven’t seen the posts already, the Maple Conference is coming up on the 2^nd and 3^rd of November! Last year’s art competition was very popular, so this year, not only are we holding the Maple Art and Creative Works Exhibit again, but we’ve decided to extend the art competition to include a Maple Learn Art Showcase!

You may be wondering what math art can be created in Maple Learn, and what the requirements are for the conference. Let’s address the first question first.

The best way to learn what kind of math art can be made is by taking a look at our Maple Learn Art document collection! This collection is in the Maple Learn document gallery, and includes art created by users with different levels of math and Maple Learn knowledge.

Many examples of art are shown in the collection, but take a look at this art piece, which shows a fun character made with functions!

We not only have static art, but animations as well. Take a look at this document, which shows an animated flower and bee, all created with math and Maple Learn.

Now for the conference requirements. The submission requirement date is October 14^th 2022, and there’s only one criterion for submission:

• Art must be created in Maple Learn, and submissions must include the Maple Learn document.

Feel free to include any extra information about yourself and your artwork directly in the document. You can share your submission by using the share icon in the top right of the Maple Learn UI. This will create a URL, which can be sent to gallery@maplesoft.com. Don’t forget to include your name in the emailed submission! Please contact us if you’re unsure about any of the criteria, or if you have any other questions!

It may seem overwhelming, but remember: submitting something gives you a chance to share your art with the world and not submitting removes that chance! If you'd like more information about the Maple Learn Art Showcase or the Maple Art and Creative Works Exhibit, please check out our page on submissions for the art gallery on the Maplesoft website, or check out this example submission. See you all next time!

Welcome back to another blog post, Maple Learn enthusiasts! Today we’re going to go through a concept and see what documents are available to help you learn the concept. What concept? Blood typing!

You may have gotten your blood tested before, but do you know the science behind blood types? Have you ever thought about it, even? Well, if not, you’re in the right place! Let’s take a look at some of the concepts you need to know before looking deeper into blood typing.

First, what are genotypes and phenotypes? Did you notice those terms had links attached to them? We have Maple Learn documents on this topic, shown below. Take a moment to read them over before we continue, but to summarize: A genotype is the genetic makeup within a trait, whereas a phenotype is the displayed trait. Another important term to recognize is allele – the specific variations of genes that are involved in the genotype.

The next thing to review is Punnett Squares, and the document is also shown below. Review this one too, to learn how to examine genetic combinations! Take a good look at the tables being used, as well, as an example of a creative use of a typically mathematical feature.

Now let’s finally dig into the blood types. Humans have 4 different blood types (excluding the Rhesus factor – but we won’t be talking about that today): A, B, AB, and O. A and B alleles are represented with an “I” with a superscript A or B, respectively. O is represented with “i”. Remember, a full genotype has two alleles, so someone with the blood type O would be represented as “ii” in their genotype. Can you read the Punnett Square below?

To extend your learning, take a look at our blood typing quiz! This quiz allows you to practice making Punnett Squares on paper, in order to figure out the likelihood of a phenotype (the blood type) given the genotype of the parents.

We hope you enjoyed the concept walkthrough! Please let us know if there are any other concepts you’d like to see explained through Maple Learn documents. Until next time!

hello with the new online maple enviroment called "maple learn" can i use this to run maple on my ipad.

my main goal is to just open the files on the ipad when i am standing at a blackboard so i can tjeck and so i know what to write on the board.

are there other methods - if so i would like to hear them

i havent look at mapleNet could this be used.

PS: MAKING PDF IS NOT AN OPTIONS in general, and AS LONG AS THEY LOOK " so bad "

so just to not confuse i dont need to write formulas i just need to be able to look at my work in maple from an ipad.

and really important - i am noot looking to generate maplelearn files for everything. i want to find a normal maple file via the ipad via cloud/onedrive and open it. (no more) or login to maplelearn and open onedrive via file->open (and look through my files on the pc.

As we head back to school, I want to take a moment to thank all the math teachers out there who take on the demanding yet overlooked task of educating our children, teenagers, and young people. 

I'm where I am today because my calculus teacher, Prof. Srinivasan, was unwavering in her belief that my classmates and I could master any math topic, including calculus. Her conviction in me gave me the confidence to believe I could 'do' math. While Prof. Srinivasan made teaching look easy, I'm acutely aware that teaching math is no easy feat. Speaking with math educators regularly, I can appreciate how challenging teaching math is today compared to a decade ago. Not only do they have to teach the subject, but they must be able to teach it in-person and online, to a group of students that may not be up to speed on the prerequisite material, and in an era where disruptive technologies vie for their student's attention. No wonder math educators are so anxious about returning to the classroom this fall!

And while I wish I could abracadabra your worries away, what I can do is offer you the opportunity to use Maple Learn, a tool built to support the utopian vision of a world where all students love math. A world where math is for everyone, not just the gifted, and the purpose of math class is to explore and marvel at the wonders of the universe, not just get to the correct answer.

Slightly more concretely, Maple Learn is a flexible interactive environment for exploring concepts, solving problems, and creating rich online math content. I've seen educators use Maple Learn to help their students: 

• Grasp a definition or particularly tricky proof (for example, Formal Definition of the  Partial Derivative)
• Explore a concept and question their initial assumptions and beliefs (such as Is it an Odd or Even Function)
• Master a particular solving technique through drill and practice worksheets (Calculating Volumes)
• Work collaboratively on a math project (Designing a Roller Coaster)

I’ve talked to lots of instructors, in math, and in courses like economics and physics that use math, who have lots of ideas of how to engage their students and deepen their understanding through interactive online activities. What they don’t have are the tools, programming experience, deployment platform, or time to implement their vision. Fortunately, Maple Learn makes it incredibly easy to develop and share your own content, and all you need are your ideas and a web browser. But you don’t need to start from scratch. You can choose from an extensive, constantly growing repository of ready-made, easily customizable content covering a wide range of topics. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how easy it is, but since we are well aware that instructors are extremely busy people, we also have content development services that can help you transform your static content into interactive lessons.

If you haven't looked at Maple Learn, or it's been a while since you last saw it, you can visit Reinventing Math Education with Maple Learn for more information, including an upcoming webinar you might be interested in attending and a special offer on Maple Learn for Maple campuses. And if you ever want to discuss ways Maple Learn might help you, or have ideas on how to make it better, please reach out. I'm always up for good conversation. 

And for all the dedicated teachers who are taking a deep breath and heading back into the classroom this fall, thank you.

Welcome back to another document walkthrough! Today, I thought we’d take a look at a non-math example, like chemistry. The document we’ll be using is “Finding Average Atomic Mass”. Before we get too into it, I’d like to define some terms. Average atomic mass is defined as the weighted average mass of all isotopes of an element. An elemental isotope can be thought of as a “version” of the element – The same element at its core, but having different weight or other properties. This is due to having the same number of protons, but a different number of neutrons.

This document is, of course, about finding that average atomic mass. See the picture below for our problem, which states the element, the isotopes, and their separate masses and relative abundance.

The average atomic mass can then be calculated using sum notation. To calculate, take the weighted mean of the isotopes’ atomic masses, as shown in the overview section of the Average Atomic Mass document.

Once you’ve tried solving the problem yourself, take a look at the answer in group four, or one of the practice problems in group five. We have three examples on this topic (Average Atomic Mass Example 1, Average Atomic Mass Example 2, and Average Atomic Mass Example 3), so take a look at them all!

I hope you enjoyed learning just a bit of chemistry today, and let us know in the comments if there are any documents you’d specifically like to see explained, or any topics you’d like us to talk about!

Welcome back to another post on the Maple Learn Calculus collection! Previously on this series we looked at the Limit subcollection, and today we are going to look at the Derivative subcollection in the Maple Learn Document Gallery.

There are many different types of documents in this sub collection, so let’s take a look at one of them. We’ll start with the very first question people ask when learning about derivatives: What is a derivative?

This document starts us off with an example of f(x):=x². The example provides the background information for the rest of the document, and a visualization with a slider.

Then, we define both the Geometric and Algebraic definition of a derivative. This allows us to understand the concept in two different ways, a very useful thing for students as they explore other topics within calculus.  

Finally, the document suggests two more documents for future learning: Derivatives: Notation, for more information on the notation used in derivatives, and the Formal Definition of a Derivative document, for more information on how derivatives are formally defined and derived. Make sure to check them out too!

Now, that’s just the start. We’ve got practice problems, definitions and visualizations of rules, information on points without derivatives, and much more. They’re useful for both new learning and as a refresher, so take a look!

We can’t wait to see you another time for when we dive into Derivative documents. Let us know after the Calculus collection showcase blog posts if there’s another collection you’d like to see showcased!

Yes, you read that right! Steps documents are a feature in Maple Learn that we wanted to highlight this week, as they can provide great use in understanding concepts and solving problems. Within them, they can show all steps to solve a problem, including reminders of any formulas used! They can be found at the homepage for steps documents. A list of all can be found below the image, with links.

All steps documents:

• Calculus
  • Derivative Steps
  • Limit Steps
• Algebra and Equations Steps
  • Expansion Steps
  • Simplification Steps
  • Solving Equation Steps
  • Factoring Steps
• Matrix Steps
  • Determinant Steps
  • Eigenvector Steps
  • Inverse Steps
  • Gauss-Jordan Elimination Steps
  • Gaussian Elimination Steps

All of our documents follow the same format, which I’ll show you using 3 different documents: Derivatives Steps, Factoring Steps, and Matrix Determinant Steps. They will be shown from left to right in that order, so you can see the different steps and how they work.

The first thing you’ll see on any steps document is the place to enter the equation. Each equation can be entered in the appropriate box, in different styles to fit your needs and the problem asked.

Then, you click on the show steps button, which is the same for all of the documents:

This is where the magic happens. The steps will appear line by line, in great detail. The actual steps are generated by Maple, and presented in Maple Learn through scripting. Because of this, please don’t click off the group the steps appear in, or they’ll appear in the new group as well!

There are many other steps documents than the ones we have here, and will be adding more as time goes on. Please keep an eye out, and enjoy the updates! We hope this was helpful to you all, and let us know if there are any other steps you’d like to see.

Have you ever heard of a matrix kernel or nullspace? If not, or you’d like a refresher on the topic, keep reading! We’re doing a Maple Learn document walkthrough today on Fundamental Subspaces.

The document starts by defining the nullspace/kernel and nullity of a matrix. Nullity is defined as the number of vectors in the basis of the kernel for the given matrix. This makes sense, as nullspace is defined as:

This may still not make sense to you, and that’s okay! We have an example for a reason, where we try to find a basis for Null(A) and state the dimension of the subspace (nullity).

I won’t go through the solution here, as trying it yourself is always important. But one hint! If you get really stuck, you can find the Reduced Row Echelon Form (RREF) and the kernel using Maple Learn’s context panel, or check out the rest of our Matrices collection for other helpful documents on this topic.

Please let us know what you thought of this walkthrough or if there are any specific documents or topics you’d like to see in the comments below this post. I hope you enjoyed this walkthrough!

We’ve decided to start a new series of blog posts, where we take a closer look at the collections available in Maple Learn. What collection are we looking at first, you ask? Our largest, the Calculus collection! This collection has around 250 documents, and was one of the first to be added to the Maple Learn document gallery.

Because it’s so big, we can’t talk about it all in one post. Instead, we’re going to break it up into three posts: Limits (this one!), Derivatives, and Integration. Keep an eye out for those other ones!

Let’s dive into it. If you’re learning limits for the first time, the first document you’ll want to take a look at is our document on the formal definition of limits.

And of course, just as the document title says, we start with the formal definition of a limit:

From there, like many of our other documents, there’s a visualization to the left, and an explanation to the right. Seems fairly simple, right?

Well, what if you wanted to dig further into the topic?

That’s what the rest of this collection is for! We have documents on many topics relating to limits, such as The Squeeze Theorem, or The Fundamental Trig Limit (don’t forget to use the slider!). We also have a steps document, to help you solve any limits problems you’ve created or found.

We can’t wait to see you another time for when we dive into Derivative documents. Let us know if after the Calculus collection showcase, if you have another collection you’d like to see summarized!