I changed my mind which is why I retracted this comment, it's not needed to know the numerical value here. So I do not simplify
this to 0.
Rich
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Fateman" <fateman at cs.berkeley.edu>
To: "Richard Hennessy" <rvh2007 at comcast.net>
Cc: "Richard Fateman" <fateman at EECS.Berkeley.EDU>; "Barton Willis" <willisb at unk.edu>; <maxima at math.utexas.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2008 9:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Maxima] pw.mac version 2.3.1
Richard Hennessy wrote:
> "Numerical indecision". I want x*pwdelta(x) to return 0, that would be my decision.
>
> Rich
>
>
That is, x*pwdelta(y) --> when x=y. The decision, is x=y may not be
obvious in some instances. For example, x and y may be complicated
expressions or may be numerical values that are very slightly
different. (In Mathematica, there is a notion of accuracy associated
with software floats -- two numbers may be deemed equal if their
uncertainty is sufficiently large, even if they are not identical).
Rjf