On Wednesday 19 November 2008 12:42:19 Justin Harford wrote:
> I am doing calculations to find solution concentrations in chemical
> equilibria. Some of this involves work solving cubics, which I am
> finding yield a lot of imaginary numbers. Is there perhaps a way
> to make maxima only give the real roots of a cubic, or any other
> polynomial for that matter? They really just get in the way when
> dealing with real processes.
realroots, realonly.
(%i1) realroots (x^3-3*x^2+4*x-2 = 0);
(%o1) [x = 1]
(%i2) algsys([x^3-3*x^2+4*x-2 = 0], [x]);
(%o2) [[x = %i + 1], [x = 1 - %i], [x = 1]]
(%i3) block([realonly:true], algsys([x^3-3*x^2+4*x-2 = 0], [x]));
(%o3) [[x = 1]]
http://maxima.sourceforge.net/docs/manual/en/maxima_21.html
--
Pungenday, Aftermath 31 YOLD 3174
Alexey Beshenov http://beshenov.ru/