I have a problem that clearly is trivial and also states that I am a
newbie in many aspects.
What I did was
k(T)=A+B/T+C/T^2+D/T^3;
solve(%,T);
After setting A, B, C and D to the right numerical values I hoped one of
the solutions would allow me to reconstruct the T if I had a matching k.
Unfortunately the results aren't real numbers (like I naively expected)
but read like:
(1858697.723324983*%i
+1516536.685031037)^(1/3)+17920.05777118602/(1858697.723324983*%i
+1516536.685031037)^(1/3)+129.4794801195104;
I know that (a+b*%i)^(1/3) actually has 3 solutions so maxima cannot
unconditionally take any further simplification steps without knowing
which of the 3 solutions I need.
But if I want to know the only result that is a real number (and am even
willing to pick the right solution by hand): Is there any way of telling
maxima to tell me how high this number is?
Thanks a lot,
and kind regards,
Gunter.