Rules and simplification question (newbie)

On Tue, 23 May 2006 23:24:13 -0600, "Robert Dodier"  wrote:
>Hi Doug,
>
>> I'm new to Maxima.
>
>Terrific!
>
>> I want to apply a rule such that the expression:
>> %e^-x^2  is replaced by gp(x)
>>
>> When x is a variable it works fine, but when x
>> is an expression such as r/t, the rule doesn't work:
>
>Well, for the most part the pattern-matching stuff only works
>with literal matches. (Rules for * and + will try, not very hard,
>to match against arithmetically equivalent expressions.)
>So that's why r^2/t^2 didn't work.
>

Mostly I need Maxima for solving differential equations,
and it works really well for that.

I was hoping it did pattern matching a little differently.
But with your ideas and everyone else who provided help I
should be able to get something working.

Thanks,

Doug

>
>Here's a half-hearted attempt to get that idea working.
>This stuff assumes the variable of interest is x.
<snip>