Several things:
The Maxima convention is that numbers with decimal points are approximate
and are represented as floating-point numbers. In general, calculations on
approximate numbers yield approximate numbers.
is(a=b) is *syntactic* equality, comparing the *form* of a and b, not their
value. Thus is((x+1)^2=expand((x+1)^2)) returns false. For value
equality, use is(equal(a,b)), e.g. is(equal((x+1)^2,expand((x+1)^2))). The
integer 0 is not syntactically equal to the float 0.0, but Maxima considers
them to be equal in value. (Though one could argue that floats should never
compare equal....)
As for the behavior of "limit", a limit at a float is not useful or
meaningful. Is the value of limit(tan(x),x,float(%pi/2)) 1.6e+16? I
suppose we could have limit give an error for floating-point arguments, but
that doesn't really seem helpful or useful.
-s
On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 10:54, Claudio Botarelli <
claudio.botarelli at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear developers and users of Maxima,
> troubleshooting a program of mine, I have discovered a Maxima's behaviour
> which appears inconsistent to me.
> There is a strange utilization of integer, real and complex numbers.
> Input of the example:
>
> kill(all)$
>
> a: 0.1+%i*0.0;
> b: 0.0+%i*0.0;
> c: 0.0+%i*0.1;
> d: 0.1+%i*0.1;
>
> realpart(b);
> realpart(c);
>
> is(realpart(a)=realpart(d));
> is(realpart(b)=realpart(c));
> is(imagpart(c)=imagpart(d));
> is(imagpart(a)=imagpart(b));
>
> exp(%i*0);
> exp(%i*0.0);
> limit(exp(%i*x),x,0.0,plus);
>
> is(limit(exp(%i*x),x,0.0,plus)**=exp(%i*0.0));
>
> build_info();
>
> output of the example:
>
> 0.1
> 0.0
> 0.1*%i
> 0.1*%i+0.1
> 0.0
> 0
> true
> false
> true
> true
> 1
> 1.0
> 1
> false
> Maxima version: 5.26.0
> Maxima build date: 22:48 1/15/2012
> Host type: i686-pc-mingw32
> Lisp implementation type: GNU Common Lisp (GCL)
> Lisp implementation version: GCL 2.6.8
>
>
> Particularly interesting the tests:
> is(realpart(b)=realpart(c))
> is(limit(exp(%i*x),x,0.0,plus)**=exp(%i*0.0))
> both should produce true rather than false.
> Any idea about?
> Do I improperly/wrongly use Maxima? Is it a Maxima's bug?
> Thanks in advance for your support.
> Kind Regards
> Claudio
>
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