After 15+ years of using Maple, I've decided to take latest build of
Maxima for a spin (motivated to some degree by the desire to find a
symbolic algebra program I can have my students use at no cost). I've
done a a bit of 'fooling' with Maxima (learn by doing), and am stuck on
something which seems pretty trivial.
Consider f : -x^3+x+0.25=0
Now, I know from Maple that the roots of this polynomial are -0.83757,
-0.26959, and 1.1072. However, in Maxima, if I try
solve(f,x);
I get something is is bizarrely large and convoluted -- all sorts of
fractions, and square roots, and the like. I tried toggling different
levels of float, but I still don't end up with a nice simple solution
vector containing these three solutions.
Pointers to the obvious solution? Thanks in advance (remember, newbie,
more or less, so set phasers to 'singe only'). ;-) I'll leave my
implicit differentiation question to a followup post. ;-)