Subject: newbie question, finding minima and maxima
From: Mario Rodriguez
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:39:57 +0100
El jue, 07-12-2006 a las 10:00 +0100, Hugo Coolens escribi?:
> Is there a simple way to make look Maxima for a (preferably global)
> maximum of a function?
> I know of course you can use the derivative(s) and look for critical
> points etc. but because I don't want to "reinvent the wheel" I wonder
> whether Maxima already has a function like globalmax(f(x),[a,b]) or
> something similar which just returns the point for which f(x) has its
> maximum value.
I don't think there is such a package in Maxima. There are some
approaches to global optimization (simulating annealing, tabu search,
genetic algorithms), but none of them is implemented in Maxima, afaik.
I wrote some 'genetic algorithm' stuff for Mathematica some years ago. I
could translate it into lisp (not just now); it could be a starting
point to global optimization in Maxima.
Best wishes.
--
Mario Rodriguez Riotorto
www.biomates.net