"Stavros Macrakis" <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> writes:
...
> Well, IEEE 754 is about floating-point, so 1^inf above was shorthand for 1.0^inf.
But Maxima isn't always about floating point, so 1 and 1.0 are different.
> Now here's the problem in Maxima. Unless we do a global analysis of every expression
> (what Limit does), then expressions will simplify in the usual bottom-up way. What's
> more, the expression may only be built piece by piece, so the whole expression may no
> longer be accessible.
>
> So if you start with an expression like (1-1/inf)^inf, it will simplify to (1-0)^inf
> then to 1^inf, which it is being proposed should simplify to 1. But following the
> semantics I believe we all agree on for expressions with multiple inf's, the original
> expression must be interpreted as limit( (1-1/x)^y, [x,y], inf),
> which is IND.
So if an expression involves inf, every constant c should be treated
as an expression g(x) with lim g(x) = c? Ouch, that sounds awkward
and unnecessarily complicated; when I type in "1", I mean "1", not
"limit(1-1/x),x,inf)".
Jay