Can Maple compare irrational numbers?

A simple command like   if(2<√5,0,1)   is not working for me. 

This is for a calculus lab.  I need to show my students how to do this with Maple.

It only does the inner integral and gives  ...

I typed  x:=a*cos(t)^3

For a while it was handling this correctly.

But then it started replacing the multiplication sign by ~ every time it used this or anything similar.

Something has changed the status of the a .

If I use b instead of a, it works fine.

I have a worksheet for my students which implements a number of formulas for vector-valued functions such as unit tangent vector and curvature.  All in terms of parameter t. 

Then in some cases we want to evaluate them for a specific value of t.  It works to say t:=2 and then recalculate the expressions.  But after this, what if I want to set t back to no value i.e. make it a variable again?  I have a solution:  delete the line that set...

The first line below is my code for computing the angle between vectors U and v.

It works and gives correct answers.  But it appears on the screen with this  "Typesetting: delay"  for each of the dot products.

What does it mean?  Is there a package I should have loaded?

This is for a lab where I want students to use the formula as it appears in the textbook rather than using some built in function that makes it "too easy."