Using maxima for high school mathematics



On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 07:04:43PM +0200, Mario Rodriguez wrote:
> > What are these? I've never come across them do I need to be worried
> > about them?
> > 
> 
> They help you to allocate points on the plane, they mark the coordinates
> on the axes.

Ah, ok. 
> > How can I figure out what + signs are part of the curve without getting
> > confused with the other individual + signs? 
> > 
> 
> Hard to know; see the plot below. Gnuplot makes use of different symbols
> to draw only one object. For example, the plus symbol in the vertices of
> the rectangle.

Yep, especially that produced by plot2d is much easier to understand. 

> > Taking this concept slightly further, does this mean in theory I could
> > convert other images (diagrams for example), to ascii?
> > 
> 
> Judge for yourself:
> 
> 
> load(draw) $
> set_draw_defaults (user_preamble="set terminal dumb")$
> 
> draw2d(
>    xrange = [0, 15],
>    yrange = [-5, 10],
> 
>    triangle([1, -3],[2, 4],[5, 2]),
>    rectangle([4, 6], [9, 8]),
<snip>

Interesting, will have to play with this a bit more, but looks
promising. I'm sure it'd be 100% usable when embossed in Braille onto
paper, but with a one line Braille display, takes a bit of getting used
to the shapes. 

The graphs especially are fantastic, thanks very much for your help!
This hopefully solves the main problem I was having accessing the CAS:)

Cheers,
Dan