Am Sun, 19 Oct 2003 09:05:29 -0700 hat Richard Fateman
<fateman@cs.berkeley.edu> geschrieben:
> try
>
> factor(x^2-5, a^2-5). The second argument specifies that you
> are adjoining a root of a^2-5=0 to the algebraic field.
I should expect that Maxima (or for that matter, any CAS) should factor in
the algebraic closure of Q and Q[i]. But Maxima does not, neither does
Maple, though both packages calculate the zeroes in these fields. What is
the reason for this? Is not factoring and finding zeroes essentially the
same (at least in subfields of C that have characteristic 0)?
--
jb