Scot Gould

Scot Gould

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11 years, 364 days
Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, Scripps College
Professor of Physics
Upland, California, United States
Dr. Scot Gould is a professor of physics at Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges - members of The Claremont Colleges in California. He was involved in the early development of the atomic force microscope. His research has included numerous studies and experiments using scanning probe microscopes, particularly those involving natural fibers such as spider silk. More recently, he was involved in developing and sustaining AISS. This full-year multi-unit, non-traditional, interdisciplinary undergraduate science education course integrated topics from biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science. His current interest is integrating computational topics into the physics curriculum. He teaches the use of Maple's computer algebraic and numerical systems to assist students in modeling and visualizing physical and biological systems. His Dirac-notation-based quantum mechanics course is taught solely through Maple.

MaplePrimes Activity


These are replies submitted by Scot Gould

@nm Help then says, "It can also be any font name supported by your system." 

I'm sure we both have seen that phrase before... Deja vu? ðŸ˜‰

Note, one can also get LaTex fonts for Windows if you prefer those.

@nm Your font looks like Times Roman.  The fonts @acer look monospaced. Have you tried Arial?

@acer Thank you for taking a stand on this. In previous, now deleted posts, the op has been called out about his behavior of deleting questions and that it was offensive to those who responded. I suspect many of the smart folks here, as well as myself, have chosen to ignore his questions even though some of the questions are of general interest to the community. Hopefully, with your response, everyone will fully understand the situation. 

Please use the green up arrow on the post input to upload your worksheet.

@acer experientia docendi MATLAB

@scottwr  In the RandomVector, set 'generator = 1..6'. But don't change the output to integer

Of the options offered here, my tests show it is the fastest. 

@studentX369 Thanks. I can see why it would be nice to be able to change bindings. My guess is adding that feature would require a great deal of modification to the program. However, I know that each year, Maplesoft looks at MaplePrimes for new ideas or modifications. Maybe this one will get traction. 

Regardless, I'm curious. Which software uses <shift><enter> to send? 

For what it is worth, If I'm writing code and not just math equations, I use either a Code Edit Region for small procedures or create worksheets with Maple Code files (attachments). If you haven't tried it, I recommend it. The highlighting of keywords is very useful. A colleague of mine conducted research on which color text is shown to be the most readable and comprehended. Conclusion:

Best: green text
Worst: red text

I'm not sure how difficult it is to distinguish between completing the execution group with Enter and adding additional lines to an execution group with Shift-Enter. However, you may prefer to use another editing form. 

1) Save a blank worksheet as a workbook. 

2) Right-click to add a Maple Code Attachment file.

3) Open the MCA file. 

4) Edit away using only the Enter key. 

5) Use the "read" procedure to read the MCA file into your workbook main file. (Seek help for examples of how to make a workbook.)

The upside is that you can get the colors of a CER and the enter key only. The downside is that it has to be written in 1d-input. No WYSIWYG editing. 

This is the same question you posted before. Did you delete my answer? 

1) Use algsubs

2) it is x*t, not xt as you have in eval

algsubs, not eval.

x*t, not xt

@scottwr I've been using Maple in my undergraduate physics courses for years, and I've come to the conclusion that unless the problem is using non-MKS units, one shouldn't use them. If one is working with ft-months or lb-lightyears, then the units package is handy. Otherwise, including units in Maple work simply adds unnecessary verbiage. Compare the efficient answer of Kitonum with this line:

select( t -> t > 0, times) []

With MKS, all times are in seconds. (And if they are not, convert them to immediate.)

Again, this is my experience. Your kilometerage will vary. 

@Rebecca Awerigiya Your choice of how to create variables with subscripts could lead to problems. See this video to see a safer way to add subscripts to your variable. 

If you are interested, I created a playlist of how to do Maple fundamentals. My approach uses 2D input and worksheets. Obviously, everyone has a different approach.  The intro video explains the approach. Skip it and go to video 1. The playlist is designed to watch the videos sequentially. 

Learning Maple Fundamentals

@Kitonum I'm glad your workaround was obvious to you. For me, it is education. I would have said:

L := [ isolve( a * b = 4) ];
select( s -> eval(a, s) >= 1, L)

But I like your answer more because it can be applied to a wider range of problems. 

@salim-barzani 

If you would prefer to stick with 2d-input consider selecting in the menu bar View->Atomic Variables. Then, there will be a color difference between a__1 and a[1].

My rule of thumb for subscripts are:
  * If a variable naturally has a subscript such as epsilon__0 in physics, write it as an atomic variable, not epsilon[0].
  * If a couple of variables naturally have been written as entities with subscripts such as x__0 and x__f, write them as atomic variables. 
  * If a variable is representing an entry into a sequence, list, set or vector, use indexing such as x[n].

From what I have seen of your document, RARELY would you benefit from using indexed variables such as beta[n]. In fact, you are more likely to have a problem with them versus the atomic variable beta__n. Why? Because what if 'n' is changed? Then beta[n] might get assigned the wrong value. But beta__n would not.  

Finally, even if you don't highlight atomic variables using View->Atomic Variables, variables with number subscripts are displayed differently if they are indexed versus atomic variables. The number in the subscript of an atomic variable is italicized. The number in the subscript of an indexed variable is not. Test it with:

> a[1], a__1

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