Volker van Nek wrote:
>
> (%i2) gfactor(%i*k^4 -2*k^3 -2*%i*k^2+2*k+%i);
>
> (%o2) %i*(k-1)*(k+1)*(k+%i)^2
>
> See ?gfactor
>
> HTH
>
> Volker van Nek
Thanks, i had missed this one. Now the following problem which was
in my computation:
niobe% maxima
(%i1) gfactor(sqrt(%i*k^4 -2*k^3 -2*%i*k^2+2*k+%i));
2 2
(%o1) sqrt((%i (k - 1) - 2 k) (k - 1))
(%i2) radcan(%o1);
2
(%o2) sqrt(k - 1) sqrt(k + 1) sqrt(%i k - 2 k - %i)
(%i6) map(gfactor, sqrt(%i*k^4 -2*k^3 -2*%i*k^2+2*k+%i));
2
(%o6) sqrt(%i (k - 1) (k + 1) (k + %i) )
(%i7) radcan(%);
2
(%o7) sqrt(k - 1) sqrt(k + 1) sqrt(%i k - 2 k - %i)
This misses the opportunity to get (k+%i) sqrt(k^2-1) and to simplify (k+%i)
with other factors in the computation. In fact i had to help a lot of the
computation by hand to get the simple result at the end.
Of course this is non trivial, and i don't pretend that maple is good for
manipulations of square roots!
--
Michel Talon