Hi everybody,
I'm new on this list and I hope that it will help me to become more
aquainted with Maxima. Maxima is doing some jobs so astonishing well and
then appears to become completely dumb. (Probably, I am the dummy...)
I am solving a differential equation describing the motion of an object
on an laterally inclined plane. The object is subject to Coulomb
friction an moves initially in longitudinal direction. This is my Maxima
code:
/* Definitions and ranges */
logexpand:all;
assume(a>0,v0>0);
v:v0-a*t;
/* This is for Output in TeX */
texput(alpha,"\\alpha");
texput(v0,"v_0");
/*
Solving of the differential equation with initial conditions
y(0) = 0
v(0) = v_0
*/
'diff(y,t,2)+a*'diff(y,t)/v-g*sin(alpha)=0;
ode2(%,y,t);
ic2(%,t=0,y=0,'diff(y,t)=0);
/* Simplification of the solution */
%*4*a^2/(sin(alpha)*g);
fullratsimp(%);
radcan(%);
tex(%);
There are obviously possible simplifications to the Maxima output,
applying Binomic formulas and applying
log(a) - log(b) = log(a/b)
but I cannot convince Maxima to apply this simple rules :-(
This is a general problem for me when working with Maxima: I seldomly
succed in compacting the output.
Any ideas? BTW: Is there any tutorial demonstrating the approach to real
world problems (like above) with Maxima?
Greetings from M?nster, Germany
Wolfgang Hugemann