On Qua, 2009-04-08 at 23:31 +0200, Michel Talon wrote:
> This integral doesn't exist, in the mathematical sense, period.
I agree. In my opinion, the result of:
integrate(1/x,x,-2,1);
should be the same as:
(%i1) integrate(1/x,x,0,1);
defint: integral is divergent.
What happens is that sometimes in physics we wrongly use 1/x, when we
should have used some other function that does not diverge at x=0.
Regards,
Jaime
(another physicist...)