This self-contained text is organized along a spiral, revisiting the general topics of graphics, symbolic computation, and numerical simulation in greater detail and more depth at each turn of the spiral. The heart of this text is a large number of computer algebra worksheets or "recipes" that have been designed using MAPLE (Version 10). No prior knowledge of MAPLE is assumed. All relevant commands are introduced on a need-to-know basis and are indexed for easy reference.

Aimed at first- and second-year science and engineering undergraduates, the presentation is driven by examples from a variety of disciplines to appeal to students in mathematics, physics, engineering, chemistry, economics, biology, and pre-medicine. The spiral design allows the book to be effectively used as a computational science text, with each section of recipes followed by a set of problems. The book may also be used for self-study and may form the basis of an on-line course.