newbie question, finding minima and maxima



On 12/7/06, Hugo Coolens <coolens at kahosl.be> wrote:

> Is there a simple way to make look Maxima for a (preferably global)
> maximum of a function?

If a numerical solution is OK, take a look at lbfgs.
It is in Maxima 5.10.0 (but not any earlier revision).
lbfgs is a local search algorithm, of the quasi-Newton variety,
for smooth functions.

By the way, lbfgs looks for a minimum. So to find the maxima
just take the negative of the original function.

Hope this helps
Robert Dodier