Re: Handling branch cuts for hypergeometric functions

Hello Ray, you wrote in part:

> Would it make sense to just ask the user if 0 < x < 1 and use
> 15.4.13, otherwise use 15.4.12?  This kind of implies to the
> user that x is a real number.

I'm mostly against the use of interactive queries, as their
presence makes it difficult to write noninteractive programs
(e.g. batch files).

An appropriate result here would be an unevaluated
conditional representing the possible choices, perhaps with
all alternatives evaluated or all unevaluated or some mix
such as evaluating only the alternative with the simplest
assumptions.

Until we reach the distant Utopia of unevaluated conditionals,
my vote is for making the simplest assumption that can't be
disproven according to the assume database. In this case that
might be to assume x is real.

Thanks a lot for all your work. I know you've put a lot
of effort into the hypergeometric functions package.

Hope this helps,
Robert Dodier


		
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