Hello, A Maple user sent me a technical support e-mail today with questions about calculating prime numbers, and I thought that it would be worthwhile to post the questions in this forum for our community to answer. The questions are: 1. What is the "best and final" algorithm to find a prime number in Maple? 2. How can you use Maple to calculate the last Mersenne prime number? Bryon Thur Manager, Business Information Systems Maplesoft

When I graph the functions sin(x) and sin(1/x) in maple I can see that these functions will intercept each other an infinite number of times. However, when I write the equation sin(x)=sin(1/x) and click on it and choose solve maple only ruturns the obvious solutions 1 and -1. I can see that sin(1/x) ->0 as x increases (x>2/Pi) and that sin(x) will repeatedly assume all values between 0 and 1 as x increases. In general, how can you find the values where the two functions intercept on some interval where x>1, say [2,10], and also on some interval where x is between 0 and 1? Can I do this with Maple both algebraically and numerically?

You can use export to metafile. The problem is that the created file is not a vector based graphic. So when you print it or when you enlarge it, the pixels appear and deteorate the quality. MATLAB has two options in copying a plot into clipboard: copy as bitmap and copy as metafile. But in Maple the Metafile has not any difference with Bitmap! I do this by exporting my figure to .eps (color or B&W), then importing it from Word. A more complicated task!

is there anyway to use maple for convergince/ divergince test, and also Taylor series in sigma notation?

Suppose you have a complicated expression g for what you expect is a simple function f. Suppose also that you cannot find how to simply, combine, expand g in order to get f. What can you do? What I typically do is graph f and g, or graph f minus g. I thought I overheard someone at the Maple 05 Conference say there is a command that checks to see if f and g agree on some mesh. If they do, the command makes some response. Is there such a command? I know I should have interrupted the conversation and asked details, but I didn’t. Maybe someone can help now.

I need to calculate spin coefficients using a tetrad of null vectors, {l, n, m and m*} that I constructed for a certain metric. The brute tensor calculations are very lengthy, especially for this metric. On the other hand I have tried to use Maple (9.5) npspin; and the example given on the use of npspin. It's not clear from the example whether the entries (1,1),...(2,3)...etc are: 1) from setting the rows of the covariant vectors l, n, m and m* adjuscent to each other(?) to form some 4 X 4 matrix; or 2) from the metric g (elements) through dyadic combinations (1/2)ln+(1/2)nl-(1/2)mm*-(1/2)m*m that form it.

Hi, How do I make Maple keep track of more significant digits during calculations? I ask this because I created essentially identical sequential programs in C and Maple 10. In C, I am able to obtain answers to E-08, -09, -10, whereas in Maple 10, the results are displayed as 0, even though I input the same initial conditions in both, and they are subject to the same operations. I've placed "Digits := 20:" before printing the values I want, but that only prints the value to 20 significant digits -- e.g. in my case, 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 00 without the spaces. Thanks, Dennis

Has anyone attempted to communicate with the help browser from outside Maple? Specifically, to request it to display a particular help topic? I have occasional use for this. My current approach is to use cmaple; that's easy to launch with a help request, however, sometimes I prefer the additional capability of the gui browser.

When I upgraded my Mac G5 from OS 10.3 to OS 10.4, the OS X versions of Maple (Maple 9.5 and Maple 10) continued to work. But the classic versions of Maple (Maple 7 and Maple Vr5) quit working. It turns out that the classic versions will run in OS 10.4 if the following files (perhaps from an old "System Folder") are moved into the "Extensions" folder of the active classic OS 9 "System Folder": OpenGLEngine OpenGLUtility OpenGLRendererATI OpenGLRenderer OpenGLMemory OpenGLLibrary Shared Library Manager PPC At least this worked for me.