Thanks Stavros/Robert/Mario! You've shown me several ways to get done
what I wanted. More importantly, you've opened my eyes to the fact that
Maxima is not only a program written in Lisp but one that can be be used
with Lispy mindset which I hadn't considered.
Thanks,
Phil
Stavros Macrakis wrote:
> On 12/29/06, Phil <pbpublist at comcast.net> wrote:
>> e1: a^2+b^2=c^2;
>> apply(rhs(first(solve (e1, b))), [3, 5]);
>
> Thanks for your interest in Maxima!
>
> There are a couple of things to note here.
>
> First of all, "apply" applies functions to arguments, either named
> functions (like sin or f where f(x):=x^2) or lambda-expressions.
> Solve does not return a function, it returns a list of solutions,
> where each solution is a list of equations.
>
> The best and simplest way to substitute values for variables is the
> subst function:
>
> subst([a=3,c=5], solve(e1,b))
>
> I would not recommend using "ev" and " ' ' " (two single-quotes),
> because their use can be tricky and surprising. As a general rule, if
> it can be done with "subst", I would recommend doing it with subst,
> not ev or other mechanisms.
>
> -s