integrate(sin(x)*cos(x),x) I got a solution

On Wed, May 16, 2007 at 03:16:28PM -0700, Richard Fateman wrote:
> 
> 
> Doug Stewart wrote:
> 
> >My real problem was to get Maxima to show all the intermediate steps in 
> >calculating an answer to a question.
> >Other people have brought this up in the past and I am not asking that 
> >it be visited again, I am just explaining why I am doing all this.
> >
> You are assuming that Maxima's intermediate steps somehow correspond to 
> some useful sequence to a calculus student.
> This is true only if the calculus student wants to learn how to write a 
> computer program.  The steps taken by a human following the instructions 
> in a calculus book would usually be quite different.

While maxima's internal calculations would not be helpful for a calc
student, It is possible, however, to use maxima as an aid to manual
calculation of calculus type problems. For example, calculating a
definite integral by first calculating the indefinite integral and
substituting the limits of integration.

Or for example, if the student is supposed to calculate using a
substitution, they can perform the substitution, calculate the
integral with respect to the new variable, and then re-substitute the
old variable, each step being done automatically by maxima.



-- 
Daniel Lakeland
dlakelan at street-artists.org
http://www.street-artists.org/~dlakelan