MuPAD (Win 3.0 Pro) Minutia

From: Richard Kanarek (FirstInitialLastName_at_Spamcop.net)
Date: 08/22/04 

Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 23:36:22 GMT

X-No-archive: yes

Greetings.

I'm a new'ish MuPAD user and undergraduate student battling with both
first year calculus and MuPAD 3.0 Pro. I have a few questions, which
I'm sure you'll find exceptionally tedious. If you'd care to answer
any of them, I'd certainly appreciate it. In no particular order:

1) Making MuPAD et al full screen by default.
Whenever I launch MuPAD or, more frequently <g>, MuPAD's help browser,
it either opens in a non-maximized window, or it opens in a maximized
window, and then de-maximizes itself. Is there a way of getting
it/them to open -- and stay open -- in a maximized window?

N.B. This happens on both my computers, one running Win 98 and the
other running Win 95.

2) int(1/(a^2 - x^2), x) (where "a" is a constant, and with the
constant of integration is omitted)

MuPAD says that: /
                            | 1
                            | ------- dx
                           / 2 2
                               a - x

is equal to: ln(a + x) ln(x - a)
                           --------- - ---------
                              2 a 2 a

which, I believe, is the same as:
                           1 / a + x \
                          --- * ln| ----- |
                          2 a \ x - a /

Mr. Stroud ("Engineering Mathematics", 5th Edition, "Programme 16")
and I, however, believe that the integral is equal to:
                           1 / a + x \
                          --- * ln| ----- |
                          2 a \ a - x /
I do not believe that our (Mr. Stroud & my) answer is mathematically
equivalent to MuPAD's answer, and I am at a loss to explain
the discrepancy. Can you?

3) "is" ain't
One of the purposes of the MuPAD's "is" command is to "checks whether
the relation holds for the expressions y and z" when the "is" command
is executed as "is(y rel z)". One of my frequent uses for CAS
(typically my TI-92+ or Casio Algebra FX2.0+ CAS) is to verify
relations (i.e. compare the results of my calculations with those
supplied by my textbooks, etc.). I've found MuPAD's "is" function,
however, remarkably poor in this regard. e.g.:

o is((x+2)^2 + 1/2 = x^2 + 4*x + 9/2)
                                    UNKNOWN

One of the simplify commands (i.e., Simplify() or simplify()) often
does better. e.g.:
o Simplify((x+2)^2 + 1/2 = x^2 + 4*x + 9/2)
                                      TRUE

Is my use or understanding of MuPAD's "is" command incorrect, or is
"is" just not very clever?

4) PI happy
In my brief association with MuPAD, I've noticed it has a penchant to
stick unnecessary PI terms into results. e.g.:

o hold(int)((2*x^2+x+1)/((x-1)*(x^2+1)),x)

                              / 2
                             | x + 2 x + 1
                             | ---------------- dx
                            / 2
                                (x + 1) (x - 1)

o eval(%)

                                      PI
                          arctan(x) - -- + 2 ln(x - 1)
                                       2
Comments?

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance!

Cordially,
Richard Kanarek

P.S. My computer access will be unpredictable for the immediate
future. If I don't respond promptly to any future posts, please
forgive me.

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