You can define functions: f:= x -> 3*(sin(x))^2+(exp(x))^(1/3);g:= x -> x*sqrt(abs(x));and plug numbers, or other functions, in:f(2);g(Pi);f(g(cos(x)));Graphing Functions:When you graph two functions on the same set of axes, it's easy to tell the difference between them, as they're different colors:plot([f(x),g(x)],x=-4..5);Notice that rather than using a fixed window of [-10,10] x [-10,10], as many graphing calculators do, I do have to *choose* the domain (the x-values) -- but then Maple chooses the y-values it thinks I want to see. If Maple is wrong, I can always change the y-values myself:plot([f(x),g(x)],x=-4..5,y=-4..4);And if you don't like the colors, or want to change one of the graphs to dotted lines, you can do that, of course!plot([f(x),g(x)],x=-4..5, y=-4..4, color=[black, blue], linestyle=[1,3]);There are a lot of choices when plotting: to see all your options, go to the help menu (topic search), and go to plot. If you scroll down that page, you'll find a link to options, and from there you can see all the various choices.One of the other choices I often find useful is making sure everything is "to scale" -- that is, the units on the y-axis are the same size as those on the x-axis: plot([f(x), g(x)], x=-4..5, color=[coral, cyan], style=[point, line], scaling=constrained);You can also define and graph piecewise continuous functions:h:= piecewise(x>1, x^2/2, -2<=x and x<=1, 1-x/2, x<-2, 2*x+6);plot(h(x), x=-10..4, scaling=constrained);I can solve equalities:solve(g(x)=1,x);solve(exp(x)*cos(x)=0,x);Notice that Maple gave the exact answer to the above equation! No messy approximations for Maple. If you want the approximation, you can get it, but you ahve to tell Maple that's what you want:solve(exp(x)*cos(x)=0,x);evalf(%);I can ask Maple to simplify or factor:simplify(x^2+(x-3)^3-4*(x+5)-x+7=3*(x-9)^2-4*(x+3));factor(x^3-1);