Maxima (software)

For other uses, see Maxima (disambiguation).

Maxima

wxMaxima screenshot
Developer(s)	Macsyma group at Project MAC and volunteer contributors
Initial release	1982 (1982)
Stable release	5.25.1 / September 6, 2011; 2 months ago (2011-09-06)
Development status	Active
Written in	Common Lisp
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Mathematical software
License	GPL
Website	maxima.sourceforge.net

Maxima is a computer algebra system based on a 1982 version of Macsyma. It is written in Common Lisp and runs on all POSIX platforms such as Mac OS X, Unix, BSD, and GNU/Linux as well as under Microsoft Windows. It is free software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

History

Maxima is based on a 1982 version of Macsyma, which was developed at MIT with funding from the United States Department of Energy and other government agencies. A version of Macsyma was maintained by Bill Schelter from 1982 until his death in 2001. In 1998 Schelter obtained permission from the Department of Energy to release his version under the GPL. That version, now called Maxima, is maintained by an independent group of users and developers. Maxima does not include any of the many modifications and enhancements made to the commercial version of Macsyma during 1982–1999. Though the core functionality remains similar, code depending on these enhancements may not work on Maxima, and bugs which were fixed in Macsyma may still be present in Maxima, and vice-versa.

Features

Maxima includes a complete programming language with ALGOL-like syntax but Lisp-like semantics. It is written in Common Lisp, and can be accessed programmatically and extended, as the underlying Lisp can be called from Maxima. It uses Gnuplot for drawing.

Numeric calculations

Maxima is a full-featured CAS (computer algebra system) that specializes in symbolic operations but it also offers numerical capabilities^[1] such as arbitrary-precision arithmetic: integers and rational numbers which can grow to sizes limited only by machine memory, and floating point numbers whose precision can be set arbitrarily large ("bfloats").

For calculations which use floating point and arrays heavily, Maxima offers the possibility of generating code in other programming languages (notably Fortran) which may execute more efficiently.

Maxima is a general-purpose system, and special-case calculations such as factorization of large numbers, manipulation of extremely large polynomials, etc. are sometimes better done in specialized systems.

Example

The first 32 rows of Pascal's triangle (beginning with row zero) may be calculated with

makelist(makelist(binomial(n, i), i, 0, n), n, 0, 31);

Interfaces

Various graphical user interfaces are available for Maxima. wxMaxima is a popular cross-platform GUI using wxWidgets. Starting with version 4.4, the KDE Software Compilation contains Cantor -- which can interface with Maxima (along with Sage, R, and Kalgebra).^[2] The GNU TeXmacs and LyX mathematical editor programs can be used to provide an interactive GUI for Maxima, as can Sage. Other options include the Imaxima front end, as well as an Emacs and Xemacs interaction mode which is activated by Imaxima.

See also

	Free software portal
	Mathematics portal

• Comparison of computer algebra systems

References

1. ^ D. Barnes and D. Chu, Introduction to Modeling for Biosciences, chapter 5, Springer 2010
2. ^ Cantor, an interface to Maxima (and other mathematics software).

External links

• Official website
• A web browser implementation of Maxima
• wxMaxima, GUI for Maxima
• irc.freenode.net port 6667 channel#maxima
• Maxima Beginner's FAQ
• Maxima 10 Minute Tutorial
• The HTML Maxima Manual in English
• dynamicalsystems, collection of several Maxima programs to create various graphical representations of discrete dynamical systems and fractals
• Short list of useful examples
• comparison of Maxima vs. MuPAD, includes a very long list of examples
• Imaxima, Emacs front end that includes typesetting.
• (Japanese) Various plotting examples
• A Maxima-Gnuplot interface, drawing examples
• (French) The SYM package for Maxima
• (Portuguese) Dynamical Systems textbook at the University of Porto (Portugal), with examples in Maxima
• DragMath, an open-source online equation editor that can export Maxima, and other formats.
• Tutorial, tips and tricks using Maxima.
• The STACK, computer aided assessment system.