Suggestions:
1. If you want to see the greek letter lambda, use the symbol %lambda.
2. The symbol lambda has a special meaning to Maxima, related to the lambda
calculus. I'm not sure why it would produce an error here, but it does.
3. In terms of display, a trick I sometimes use to make displays smaller is
to define (for example) mu[i]:=concat(M,i).
This puts the symbol all on the same line; no subscript line is necessary.
RJF
> -----Original Message-----
> From: maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu
> [mailto:maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu] On Behalf Of Kostas Oikonomou
> Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 8:16 AM
> To: maxima
> Subject: subscripted variables for display
>
> I would like to be able to compute the eigenvalues of the
> matrix
>
> A : matrix([-lambda[1],lambda[1]],[mu[1],-mu[1]])
>
> using eigenvalues(). Maxima reports an error:
>
> Maxima encountered a Lisp error:
>
> Type-error in KERNEL::OBJECT-NOT-LIST-ERROR-HANDLER: 1 is
> not of type LIST
>
> Now I am using the array lambda purely for aesthetic (nice
> display) purposes, in the TeXmacs front end. That is, I
> don't care about the fact that lambda[2] comes after
> lambda[1], etc. And I have another matrix
>
> B : matrix([-lambda[2],lambda[2]],[mu[2],-mu[2]])
>
> that uses related notation. Is there some way to make
> maxima treat lambda and mu purely as symbols?
> Or is there some other way to achieve subscripting?
>
> Kostas
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