SYMBOLIC INTEGRATION ON-LINE

There are now many software tools available that do a good job on most integrals that have closed form solutions.  The most popular are Mathematica and Maple.  But you don't have to buy software to use this capability!  You can find free integration services on the internet.  This page provides links to three such pages.

Quick Math.  We have already used this several times in class.  Here are a couple of specialized links:
Symbolic Integration w/o Limits
Symbolic Integration w/ Limits
Partial Fractions


Mathematica.   Here is a link to the mathematica online integrator page:   http://integrals.wolfram.com/  
It's use is self explanatory.  The Quickmath page is based on Mathematica, and can do many more things.  So this page is probably not all that interesting.


MACSYMA.  Here is a link to an alternate page using a program called MACSYMA.  

http://www.franz.com/success/demos/maxima/javatelnet.html

After you activiate the link, for better readability click the Detach/Delete Window button, and then maximize the detached window.  Then, to start the MACSYMA program you have to type in

                          (run)

in the black window, and then hit the ENTER key.  Now here is a sample integral.  If you want to integrate the function x2, you type in

       integrate(x^2,x);

and the program will print out the result (which should be x3/3).  If you use this integrator, be sure to remember that you have to include an * symbol for any multiplication.  So instead of putting in 3x for example, you have to put in 3*x.

Compared to the other services, this webpage seems very oldfashioned and hard to use.  But MACSYMA is of historical interest, being the first symbolic computation software.  You can find out more about MACSYMA and the history of symbolic computation software here or by doing a google search.