Symbolic algebra packages like Maple and Mathematical can be
extremely useful in your coursework, and they are easy to use
Maple is installed
on the arizona machines (maple and the X-Windows version
xmaple).
Here's a session to compute 50! exactly
and in scientific notation.
tucson.Princeon.EDU% maple
> 50!;
30414093201713378043612608166064768844377641568960512000000000000
> 1.0 * 50!;
65
.3041409320 10
> quit;
tucson.Princeon.EDU%
Maple can do much more than arbitrary precision arithmetic.
Here's a session to compute the integral of x/(x^3 -1),
and then evaluate it from 2 to infinity.
tucson.Princeon.EDU% maple
> int( x/(x^3-1), x );
2 1/2 1/2
1/3 ln(x - 1) - 1/6 ln(x + x + 1) + 1/3 3 arctan(1/3 (2 x + 1) 3 )
> int( x/(x^3-1), x = 2 .. infinity);
1/2 1/2 1/2
1/6 3 Pi + 1/6 ln(7) - 1/3 3 arctan(5/3 3 )
> quit;
Kevin Wayne