Latest release of Maple redefines maths education

Maple 12 offers true “Clickable Maths” functionality and broadens applicability to engineering departments.

Adept Scientific plc (Letchworth, Herts), announces Maple 12, the latest edition of Maplesoft'sª (Waterloo, Canada ) high-performance software tool for engineering, science and mathematics, which is used to solve complex mathematical problems and seamlessly create rich technical documents.

The development of Maple 12 was driven by the belief that maths software should be instantly accessible and easy to use. In Maple 12, "Clickable Maths" features eliminate the traditional complex command sets that still encumber other maths systems. Necessary operations are now accessible entirely through mouse movements, built-in assistants, tutors, embedded components and button clicks, saving significant time and effort for users.

"Clickable Maths" responds to the most common complaint of faculty who integrate software into the classroom Ð time is spent teaching the tool, not the concepts. With Maple 12 and "Clickable Maths" students are instantly productive and engaged.

Maple 12 also significantly broadens Maple's applicability to engineering departments. In addition to many new features such as CAD connectivity and MATLAB¨ code import and translation, Maple 12 brings the concept of "Clickable Engineering" to life. By using the same philosophy as "Clickable Maths", which delivers powerful mathematics through very visual, interactive point-and-click methods, "Clickable Engineering" shifts the way in which engineering faculties approach instruction and research.

"Maple 12 truly redefines how mathematics can be taught and is the core of our total solution for the modern academic institution," states Jim Cooper, President and CEO, Maplesoft. "From classroom instruction, to cutting edge academic research, to testing and assessment, Maplesoft is the only maths technology provider that covers every aspect of academic life."

In parallel with these product developments and the continual enhancements to the mathematical engine, Maplesoft is seeing rapid penetration of its tools in industry. The most prominent example of this success is the recent announcement of Toyota and Maplesoft entering a multi-year partnership to produce new tools for knowledge-rich physical modelling. This adoption in industry is important to engineering, maths and science educators since it is critical that students are exposed to the tools that they will use in their technical careers.

Pilot users of Maple 12 have responded positively. "Maple 12's "Clickable Engineering" concept seems like the start of a new revolution in the instruction and use of mathematics in engineering disciplines second only to the Web revolution. You can take tremendous advantage of the powerful computation engine and plotting capabilities by using Maple's point-and-click tools. I am particularly impressed by the new Exploration Assistant as a flexible exploration tool. For my students, the Student Portal is an especially valuable addition to Maple 12, making it even easier for them to profit from the power of Maple," says Dr. Michael Komma, Director of Studies, Isolde Kurz Gymnasium Reutlingen, Germany.

Major new features of Maple 12 include:

"Clickable Maths" and "Clickable Engineering" Tools

New features include plotting and visualisation tools, additional support for document creation and more resources for easy "clickable" interaction.

• More plot types include dual axis plots, polar plots and specialised engineering plots.
• The Exploration Assistant allows users to instantly create interactive mini-applications used to explore the parameters of their expressions.
• Document layout templates and headers and footers make polished documents even easier to create.
• Improved "clickable" tools include palettes, task templates, drawing canvas and new interactive embedded components, including dials and gauges.
• The Maple Student Portal acts as a guide for hundreds of common tasks from mathematics courses. The portal makes use of interactive assistants, context menus and task templates, including over a dozen new task templates created for the portal.
• The Teacher Resource Centre provides a rich archive of "clickable" applications and new media resources.

New Tools for Engineers

• Connectivity to CAD systems allows users to deploy powerful mathematical capabilities to dramatically extend the range of analysis on CAD models. In addition, Maple 12's knowledge-documentation tools allow engineers to tag designs electronically with rich technical documentation and calculations.
• MATLAB code import and translation enable the easy migration of legacy code to new Maple documents.
• Dynamic Systems modelling tools are essential in dynamic modelling, control design and signal processing. These tools add convenient frequency domain analysis, state space analysis and more to Maple's extensive mathematical tool set.
• New Wavelets support provides easy access to the most powerful suite of wavelet tools in any general-purpose computation package.
• New plotting capabilities dramatically simplify the creation of complex engineering plots. New plot types include dual axis plots, polar plots and specialised engineering plots such as frequency domain responses and root-locus plots.

Stronger Mathematical Engine

In addition to the mathematical enhancements listed above, Maple 12 offers:

• Improvements to differential equation (ODE), partial differential equation (PDE) and differential algebraic equation (DAE) solvers, which continue to strengthen Maple's world-leading position in differential equation solving.
• An updated Student Vector Calculus package that takes advantage of recent enhancements in vector calculus support inside Maple.
• A variety of additions and improvements to Maple's mathematics, efficiency and programming capabilities, including the new ability to analyse and solve systems of parameterised polynomial equations and inequalities, fast block copy for matrices and multi-threaded enhancements

About Maplesoft

Maplesoft TM is the leading provider of high-performance software tools for engineering, science and mathematics. Its product suite reflects the philosophy that given great tools, people can do great things. Over the years, it has redefined the instruction of mathematics and created a total solution for the modern academic institution.

With offices in the UK, USA, Germany and throughout the Nordic region, Adept Scientific is one of the world's leading suppliers of software and hardware products for research, scientific, engineering and technical applications on desktop computers.