What’s New in the World of Maplesoft

Math matters. Maplesoft’s mission is to provide powerful technology to help students, researchers, engineers, and scientists take advantage of the power of math so they in turn can enrich the world we live in. Since technology evolves, research advances, and needs change, Maplesoft is continuously looking for new ways to improve, experiment, and innovate, in order to fulfill that mission. In this talk, Dr. Laurent Bernardin, CEO and President of Maplesoft, will give you a tour of some new and coming things at Maplesoft that he is personally excited about, and divulge some of his thoughts on the future of math technology.

Dr. Laurent Bernardin is President and CEO of Maplesoft. He has been with Maplesoft for over 20 years and prior to his appointment to his current role, he held the positions of CTO and COO. Bernardin is a firm believer that mathematics matters. Under his leadership, Maple has grown from a research project in symbolic computing to a complete environment for mathematical calculations used by hundreds of thousands of engineers, scientists, researchers and students around the world.

The Mathieu Functions: Computational and Historical Perspectives

The Mathieu functions, which are also called elliptic cylinder functions, were introduced in 1868 by Émile Mathieu in order to help understand the vibrations of an elastic membrane set within a fixed elliptical hoop. These functions still occur frequently in applications today. Our interest, for instance, was stimulated by a problem of pulsatile blood flow in a blood vessel compressed into an elliptical cross-section. This talk surveys the historical development of both the theory of Mathieu functions and the methods used to compute them, with a particular focus on some of the interesting people who did the major work: Émile Mathieu, Sir Edmund Whittaker, Edward Ince, and Gertrude Blanch. Time permitting, we will discuss some gaps in current software capability involving double eigenvalues of the Mathieu equation, and some possible ways to fill those gaps using methods developed by Blanch.

Dr. Robert M. Corless is Emeritus Distinguished University Professor at Western University, a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy and of The Ontario Research Center for Computer Algebra, and Adjunct Professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, the University of Waterloo. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Maple Transactions. His primary research interests are computational linear and polynomial algebra, computational dynamical systems, and computational special functions. His underlying principles are Computational Discovery and Computational Epistemology, and the Ethics of AI, especially in teaching. His current focus is the new field of Bohemian Matrices. He has collaborated and published widely, and is the winner of a Halmos-Ford prize for mathematical exposition.

Maple 2022 Gems You May Have Missed

Whether you have been using Maple 2022 since the day it came out, or haven’t had a chance to try it yet, chances are good there are still new features in Maple 2022 that you haven’t explored yet. This talk will give you a closer look at some of the improvements that the presenter, the Senior Director of Research at Maplesoft and long-time Maple user, finds particularly useful or interesting. You may even get a few hints of more good things to come.

Reducing Math Anxiety with Maple Learn

Math anxiety is a complex problem, and no software is going to be able to wave its digital wand and make it go away. But the right technology can help reduce math anxiety, and dare we say it, even help indifferent students become interested in math. Maple Learn provides a flexible interactive environment for solving problems, a great platform for conceptual learning, and incredibly simple content development and deployment solutions. In this presentation, you’ll discover how Maple Learn can support your efforts to engage with your students, build their confidence, and maybe even get them excited about math.

Maple Flow – A Calculation Tool for Scientists and Engineers

Maple Flow is a math tool that reproduces the design metaphor of paper. You can place your calculations and text anywhere on a virtual whiteboard and move your work into position. Maple Flow updates your calculations automatically and rewards you with an environment that makes it easier to progressively refine and iterate your work.

This talk introduces Maple Flow, and showcases many examples from different engineering domains. You’ll also get a glimpse of what we’re working on for the next release.

Exploring Interactivity in the Maple Math Suite

Each of the products in the Maple Math Suite include tools that encourage highly visual point-and-click style explorations. While appropriately similar in some ways, each product offers its own unique advantages. In this session, you’ll discover some of the ways Maple Calculator, Maple Learn, and Maple offer students and educators a highly interactive approach to conceptual learning and problem solving, the particular strengths of each approach, different methods for sharing interactive content, and how these tools can be used together to further enhance the student experience.

Maple Programming: An Overview on Creating Packages

Everyone is familiar with using packages in Maple, from the widely useful plots package to specialized packages like AudioTools, DifferentialGeometry, and PolyhedralSets. But have you ever considered creating your own? Packages provide structure and organization to your code, and they make your work easier to reuse and share. This session will reveal some of the secrets used by algorithm developers at Maplesoft to write packages. Along the way we will touch on some essential programming topics such as modules, code-edit regions, debugging, revision control, and sharing.

Meet the Developers

Want to know more about what goes on behind the scenes at Maplesoft? This is your opportunity ask questions of members of the Maplesoft R&D team. The panel will include people who are highly involved with the development of various aspects of Maple, the Maple Calculator app, and Maple Learn. Between them, this panel has many(!!) years of experience developing products for doing, learning, and teaching math. This is meant to be an interactive session, so come with lots of questions!

Panelists

• Laurent Bernardin, President and CEO
• Paulina Chin, Software Architect
• Paul DeMarco, Senior Director – Maple Development
• Jürgen Gerhard, Senior Director – Advanced Research
• Valerie McKay-Crites, Intermediate Developer
• Erik Postma, Manager, Mathematical Software Group
• Karishma Punwani, Director, Product Management – Academic Market
• Andrew Smith, VP Product Development