</div>
The common arithmetic operations are

<dl compact="compact">
 <dt><b><tt>+</tt></b></dt>
	<dd> addition</dd>
 <dt><b><tt>-</tt></b></dt>
	<dd> subtraction</dd>
 <dt><b><tt>*</tt></b></dt>
	<dd> scalar multiplication</dd>
 <dt><b><tt>/</tt></b></dt>
	<dd> division</dd>
 <dt><b><tt>^</tt></b></dt>
	<dd>  or <tt>**</tt> exponentiation</dd>
 <dt><b><tt>.</tt></b></dt>
	<dd> matrix multiplication</dd>
 <dt><b><tt>sqrt(x)</tt></b></dt>
	<dd> square root of <tt>x</tt>.</dd>
</dl>
Maxima's output is characte