Daniel Lemire wrote:
>
> Good day,
>
>
> As someone was pointing out to me, if Maxima standpoint is to give all
> solutions or none, then what the h*ll is it doing in this example...
>
>
> (C44) solve(sin(x)=b,x);
>
>
> SOLVE is using arc-trig functions to get a solution.
> Some solutions will be lost.
> (D44) [x = ASIN(b)]
> (C45)
I suppose it depends on what is meant by ASIN.
>
>
> Why won't it do the same thing for exp(a * x) = C * exp(b *x) ?
Maybe one or the other is a bug.
>
> What's the philosophy here?
Probably "try to do the most meaningful computation that occurs to
the person writing the SOLVE program".
>
>
> Anyhow, I like better these arguments of yours... While I'm too lazy to
>
<snip> re integral
If
> Mathematica is saying something foolish here... that's Mathematica's
> problem.
Yes. You (or someone else) asked for examples of when these programs
gave wrong answers on calculus problems. The first one I came
up with broke Mathematica. I assure you that there are examples
to break the other programs.
Sure, I better get no answer than a wrong answer, but is Maple
> getting it wrong? We would also need to check on a recent version of
> Mathematica (we can't go back in time here).
This is the latest version of Mathematica. If you look on the
internet, there is a mathgroup archive with probably hundreds of
integration bugs on older versions. This bug remains from an old
version.
The Maxima program probably has all integration bugs that have
been reported and fixed in the last 20 years in the Macsyma code.
I don't know how many that might be, but considerable work on
detection of singularities may have been done by Macsyma Inc, and
lost.
BTW this says nothing about
> solving exp(a * x) = C * exp(b *x) where, again, Maple gave a correct
> (in not complete) solution.
The correct behavior of a program on one input does not usually
mean the program is free of bugs.
>
>
> Q: is there a way to make sure the output is in "Maxima". I know how to
> get tex output... what about Maxima outputs so I can cut and paste?
Try string(answer).
>
>