The Maple ODE Lab Book is intended to provide a thorough introduc­ tion to using symbolic computation software to model, solve, explore, and visualize ordinary differential equations. It is best used as a supplement to existing texts (see the bibliography for some of our recommended texts). Maple was chosen as our software package because of its ease-of-use, affordability, and popularity at many universities and colleges around the world. The version being used is Maple V Release 4. If you have a previous release of Maple, some of the commands shown in this lab book will work differently (or not at all), but the basic groundwork for solving ODEs hasn't changed. Speak to your system administrator about upgrading to Release 4, or contact: Waterloo Maple Inc. 450 Phillip Street Waterloo, Ontario CANADA N2L 5J2 Phone: (519) 747-2373 FAX: (519) 747-5284 E-mail: info@maplesoft.com WWW: http://www.maplesoft.com 1 2 • Chapter 1. Introduction How This Lab Book Is Organized Each subsequent chapter of this lab book contains information and ex­ amples of how to apply Maple to various elements of ordinary differential equations. It is suggested that you read the chapters with your computer on and Maple V Release 4 running. You can then execute many of the com­ mands yourself and experiment by changing various parameters and/or initial conditions, observing the corresponding changes in the results.