On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Javier Arantegui wrote:
< Dear list,
<
< For me, CAS is like magic. The programs are big black boxes that can
< do amazing things, like solving differential equations or really
< complex equations.
<
< As I said I don't know a word about how Maxima works, but I find
< fascinating that it is incapable of solving this simple equation:
<
< (%i12) eq:x/sqrt(x+2)=1;
< (%o12) x/sqrt(x+2)=1
<
< (%i13) solve(eq,x);
< (%o13) [x=sqrt(x+2)]
<
<
< Every high school student knows how to transform this equation to
< solve it easily:
<
< (%i14) solve(eq^2,x);
< (%o14) [x=2,x=-1]
<
<
< I just wonder why Maxima is able to solve ODEs but fails with this
< simple equation.
Thanks for your nice comments. Maxima has a lot of add-on packages which
extend the basic functionality. Here is an example:
(%i204) load(to_poly_solver);
(%o204)
"/home/lbutler/maxima-ln/maxima-5.19.2/share/contrib/to_poly_solver.mac"
(%i205) to_poly_solve(x/sqrt(x+2)=1,x);
(%o205) %union([x = 2])
Note that the spurious root is not included.
Leo
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.