Fwd: Help about maxima



Maxima has a feature which makes this sort of calculation especially easy.
You define the fixed elements using assignment

      M[1] : ...

and the parameterized ones using functional definition

      M[i] := ...

In your case:

M[1] :  matrix([cos(a),(- %i/n1)*sin(a)],[(-%i*n1)*sin(a),cos(a)])  $

M[2] :  matrix([cos(b),(- %i/n2)*sin(b)],[(-%i*n2)*sin(b), cos(b)]) $

M[i] := if i<1 then 0 else M[i-1].M[i-2] $

Once a given M[i] is calculated, it is saved and not recalculated, so if yo
u
change the definitions, you must erase (kill) the results.

The elements get very large.  The trick in getting a useful result will be
simplifying in a useful way.

           -s