Maxima is not set up to do what you want very easily.
The problem is that the standard simplifier is responsible for the
transformations sqrt(4)=>2 and 6/3=>2. In general, Maxima is not very
good at dealing with unsimplified expressions, and it is difficult to
prevent simplifications like this without turning off simplification
globally (simp:false).
There *are* tricks which would allow you to do this, but I suspect
they will cause more problems down the line. In particular, you
would have to have simplification turned off when you *call* your
show_simplification function. It can be done.... like this for
example:
(C1) simpequation: a=b$
(C2) showsimp(expr):=
?list(?car(simpequation),expr,block([simp:true],expand(expr,0,0)))$
(C3) simp:false;
(D3) FALSE
(C4) showsimp(sqrt(4));
(D4) SQRT(4) = 2
... but this will not work if simp is globally true, and in general,
Maxima does not work
very well with simp:false....
(C5) simp:true;
(D5) TRUE
(C6) showsimp(sqrt(4));
(D6) 2 = 2
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 00:09:50 +0100, Poul Riis wrote:
> If I define
> integ(f,x):='integrate(f,x)=integrate(f,x);
> I can type
> integ(x^2,x) and get the problem and the result written in one line.
> How can I do something similar with simple reductions, for instance
> 6/3=2
> or
> sqrt(4)=2
> ?