On 8/25/2010 11:55 AM, Ether Jones wrote:
> Thank you.
>
> How would a new user figure that out? I searched the docs for a lot of phrases and words, but "simpsum" was not something I would pull out of a hat :-)
>
> And, is there a way to ask Maxima to tell me how it arrived at that answer?
>
>
Note that the solution was not to change the limit program, but to
simplify the input sum so it is not a sum any more!
So it is not a fix to "limit" really.
Generally Maxima does not have a mechanism to explain, in user-friendly
terms, what it is doing. Some programs
have a "verbose" version that tries this. On the other hand, you can
get "traces" of everything Maxima computes.