Subject: Greetings, and a question about sequences.
From: steve at horne
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 07:29:49 -0400
On Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 06:37:49AM -0400, Ben Logan wrote:
> Hello, everyone.
>
> I am new to the list and relatively new to Maxima, though I am not a
> total newbie. I have just started a technical calculus course, which
> requires the use of Matlab, at a local college.
...skip...
There are very large differences betrween matlab & maxima.
Using matlab for a calculus course seems a bit odd.
Matlab does numerical linear algebra, not calculus. As far as I know (and I
haven't used it in years) it can't symbolically integrate or differentiate,
take limits, ...
It can solve ODE's but only numerically, not symbolically.
You may succeed with Maxima but you'll probably spend an unacceptable amount of
time on issues that don't further your knowledge of calculus.
I'd suggest you look at Octave too.
It uses exactly the same syntax as Matlab -- attempts to be a clone.
http://www.octave.org/
I personally use scilab
http://www-rocq.inria.fr/scilab/
which does everything Matlab does, but the syntax is slightly different.
If you use both Octave and Maxima for what they excel at,
you should ace the course.
Steve