Paul,
You might be interested in looking up the mathematical background to the
"Lambert W function".
http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/research/tr/1993/03/W.pdf
I don't know of a Maxima implementaion of this (very useful) special
function.
Chris
On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Paul Smith wrote:
> On Feb 1, 2008 11:31 AM, Paul Smith <phhs80 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is there some trick to have Maxima solving the following equation:
>>
>> f(x):=x*exp(-x)-0.05;
>> solve(f(x),x);
>>
>> ?
>
> Well, with plot2d I identified the localization of the roots and then
> I got the value of them with:
>
> find_root(f(x),x,2,5);
> find_root(f(x),x,0,2);
>
> Paul
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