An introduction to Axiom (2): Algebra

This is the second in a sequence of posts about the open source CAS Axiom. The first can be found at http://amca01.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/an-introduction-to-axiom-1/
Axiom variables are created using the “colon equals” method of many other computer languages, and user defined functions with a double equals:

Note that for the last example, the expression involving radicals can be [...]

An introduction to Axiom (1): The basics

This is the first of what I intend to be a series of posts, exploring the open source computer algebra system Axiom. Maxima has already been extremely well described on math-blog. I hope to do something similar for Axiom, but over several posts.
Obtaining and using Axiom
First: go to http://www.axiom-developer.org/ for a description and [...]