On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:59 AM, Daniel Dalton
<daniel.dalton47 at gmail.com>wrote:
> ...attempt to solve the resultant
> equation with %solve:
> %solve(sec(x/2)^2/2+cos(x/2)/2=0,x);
Nonalgebraic argument given to 'to_poly'
unable to solve
This is a bug in %solve. %solve appears to know about sec in some cases,
but not others:
%solve(sec(x)=1,x) => OK
%solve(sec(x)=sin(x),x) => unable to solve
%solve(trigsimp(sec(x)=sin(x)),x) => OK
The workaround is to apply trigsimp to the equation first to convert
sec/cot/csc/tan/etc. to combinations of sin/cos.
-s