Looks like a bug to me.
In summary (and perhaps it would be helpful to spell it
out to help readers understand what's going on)
Maxima generates a Lisp complex number, then barfs (stack overflow)
while trying to display it. (Turns out both 1-d and 2-d displays
are susceptible.)
Maxima certainly should be able to display any Lisp object
without an error; even PRINT would be OK.
I'll try to remember to look into it, but if someone wants
to file a bug report and/or fix it, I won't stop you.
best,
Robert Dodier
PS. It occurs to me a larger issue is whether Maxima should
be comfortable w/ Lisp complex numbers; I'm not sure, although I'm
leaning towards yes.
On 7/27/11, Rupert Swarbrick <rswarbrick at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I noticed this question on Stack Overflow:
>
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6808077/
>
> The reason her code didn't work was because she was taking the log of
> -1, but I was rather surprised to get a stack overflow (pun only just
> noticed).
>
> Is this a bug in the simplification code? And, if so, is it already
> known?
>
>
> Rupert
>