entering hypergeometric functions in maxima



Dlubek Michal wrote:
>> AFAIK, Maxima doesn't know how to evaluate hypergeometric functions 
>> except in very special cases, where the hypergeometric reduces to some 
>> other function.  %f is the hypergeometric function, and hgfred is the 
>> function that tries to reduce a hypergeometric function to a "simpler" 
>> function.
> 
>> However, Bill Gosper sent some code to evaluate some hypergeometrics, 
>> and some of it works, but not all.  It's in the mailing list archives 
>> somewhere.
> 
>> Ray
> 
> Hello Ray,
> Thank you for your answer.
> Would it mean that the only two functions in standard Maxima packages
> dealing with hypergeometrics are %f and hgfred and the first one could
> be used only to feed the other? I was kind of hoping that there could be

That's basically the current state of things.  I have wanted to make %f 
do more, including evaluation, but I didn't have a good method for 
numerical evaluation.  Having %f simplify to simpler functions is 
sometimes also nice, but sometimes not.

I basically got stuck at these points and haven't done anything with them.

Ray

P.S. I'm not the author of the hypergeometric stuff.  I just play with it.