Simple Arithmetic

As you may have determined from some of the examples above, you can use
Maple to evaluate arithmetic expressions in the intuitively obvious way:

* + for addition
* - for subtraction
* * for multiplication
* / for division

Arithmetic expressions are evaluated according to typical precedence rules, so:
 
> 4+2*3;
10

because 2*3 is evaluated before the addition.  Other useful operators are:

* ^ or ** for exponentiation (2^3 evaluates to 8)
* abs(...) for absolute value (abs(-4) evaluates to 4)
* ! for factorial (3! evaluates to 6)

One useful aspect of Maple is that it distinguishes rational values from
floating-point (pseudo-real) values.  Compare these statements:

> 2/3;
2/3
> 2.0/3.0;
.6666666667

This gives you the flexibility to choose between approximate or exact
answers to many mathematical questions.