Mock-up html manual page



Viktor T. Toth wrote:

  first and foremost, I think we should make sure that no code should
> produce a mathematically incorrect result, even if it fails to produce the
> "desired" result (i.e., it's better to not simplify an expression than to
> simplify it incorrectly.) I believe this attitude is essential if Maxima is
> intended to be used as a serious research tool.

I think you underestimate the difficulty of this.

Just to pick one example, consider
sum(a[i]*x^i,i,0,inf);
subst(0,x,%)   gives 0.

sum(a[i]*x^i,i,0,5);
subst(0,x,%)   give a[0]

I think that the first of these is incorrect, but fixing it is
hard, without breaking something else.
  The commercial Macsyma does the same thing even though
I suspect this bug was pointed out many years ago.

Mathematica used to have the same bug, but now it seems that it
cures this by leaving  0^i  unsimplified.  Even if the sum
is from 1 to inf.


RJF