New Package in Maxima for Single-Valued Interval Computation on Real Numbers

Intervals play a pivotal role in both theoretical mathematics and applied mathematics. As a consequence, interval computation is becoming increasingly used in several fields of Mathematics and other applied sciences. However, only a few computer programs include specialized tools and libraries for interval computation so far. In this paper we describe a new package for dealing with single-valued interval computation on real numbers. The package, developed by the authors in free ware program Maxima, version 5.23.2, allows the user to manipulate single-valued real and extended intervals and carry out the most typical set operations on intervals (such as union, intersection and difference) in a smoothly and user-friendly way. The main features of our package are discussed throughout the paper. Several illustrative examples, aimed to show the good performance of the package, are also given.