how to get started on matlab basics

Online Help

You can access the online help in one of several ways. Typing help at the command prompt will reveal a long list of topics

help general :see a long list of “general purpose” MATLAB commands

help solve: to learn about the command solve

helpwin or helpdesk at the command prompt to access the online help

syms to declare the variables

syms x y

(x - y)*(x - y)^2

expand(ans)

factor(ans)

Symbolic Expressions

simplify, which you can sometimes use to express a formula as simply as possible

simplify((x^3 - y^3)/(x - y))

arithmetic with symbolic expressions.

cos(pi/2)

cos(sym(’pi/2’)) - cosine of the symbolic representation of π/2

use of sym

create a string consisting of the characters pi/2 and prevent MATLAB from evaluating pi/2 as a floating point number. The command sym converts the string to a symbolic expression

to calculate the values of sin(0.1)/0.1, sin(0.01)/0.01, and sin(0.001)/0.001

x = [0.1, 0.01, 0.001];

y = sin(x)./x