On 05/01/2008, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> On Jan 5, 2008 12:39 PM, Jordi Guti?rrez Hermoso <jordigh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there an easy way to get Maxima to say that (1-i)/(1+i) = i?
>
> No, I'm afraid not. Perhaps because it is actually -i. :-)
>
> Remember that Maxima represents sqrt(-1) as %i:
>
> rectform((1-%i)/(1+%i)) => -%i
>
> Another way is:
>
> rat((1-%i)/(1+%i)), algebraic => -%i.
>
On 05/01/2008, J. Simons <simons17 at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Hello Jordi,
> Perhaps you can try it by the menu-option Simplify-- Complex Simplify :
rectorm and rat. Two more I didn't know of.
*sigh*
Sometimes I wish Maxima had an all-encompassing "simplify" function
with reasonable defaults. There's ratsimp, radcan, rectform, rat, and
who knows what else I'm missing that I don't know about. I guess it's
no wonder that the simplification routines are one of the few things
that Maple locks up in its kernel: these things are just hard.
Thank you Stavros and Jos? for your replies.
- Jordi G. H.