Numerical computation
Formal calculation

People sometimes refer to formal computation as distinct from numerical computation. However, it is possible to perform numerical computation within a formal computation system. While the tools most commonly used by engineers today are numerical computation software such as MATLAB or Scilab, collaboration between the two types of systems can facilitate problem-solving in the field of scientific computing. Formal computation can be used as a preprocessor for numerical computation.

Here we will examine the use of numerical computation within a formal computation system, and then how to have a formal computation system serve as a preprocessor through code generation and interfaces with numerical systems.

For the examples in Maple, we will again assume that the `LinearAlgebra` package has been loaded (see the beginning of the section at...