Tagged Questions

The art of manipulating an algebraic expression into the desired form.

6answers
2k views

Finding real roots of negative numbers (for example, $\sqrt[3]{-8}$)

Say I want to quickly calculate $\sqrt[3]{-8}$, to which the most obvious solution is $-2$. When I input $\sqrt[3]{-8}$ or Power[-8, 3^-1], Mathematica gives the ...
4answers
415 views

How do I introduce a new variable in a trigonometric equation?

I have the trigonometric equation \begin{equation*} \sin^8 x + 2\cos^8 x -\dfrac{1}{2}\cos^2 2x + 4\sin^2 x= 0. \end{equation*} By putting $t = \cos 2x$, I have \begin{equation*} \dfrac{3}{16} t^4+ ...
5answers
484 views

How do I get my equation to have the form $(x-a)^2 + (y-b)^2 + (z-c)^2-d = 0$?

I want Mathematica to express the equation $$-11 - 2 x + x^2 - 4 y + y^2 - 6 z + z^2=0$$ in the form $$(x - 1)^2 + (y - 2)^2 + (z - 3)^2 - 25=0$$ How do I tell Mathematica to do that?
2answers
294 views

How to define a non-standard algebra in Mathematica?

I want to define an algebra, where there are three elements: 0, 1 and $\infty$ and two operations, addition and multiplication defined, both commutative: \begin{align*} 0+0&=0\\ 0+1&=1\\ ...
4answers
788 views

Is it possible to have Mathematica move all terms to one side of an equation?

I have an inequality expression that I would like to express in terms of the relation of the parameters to zero. More simply, I want to have mathematica move all the terms to one side of the ...
4answers
407 views

Is there a way to Collect[] for more than one symbol?

Oftentimes you find yourself looking for polynomials in multiple variables. Consider the following expression: a(x - y)^3 + b(x - y) + c(x - y) + d as you can ...
6answers
900 views

Replacing composite variables by a single variable

To replace a single variable by another variable, one can simply use the the replace all (/.) operator (e.g., ...
2answers
967 views

Why doesn't Mathematica  expand Cos[x]^3 Sin[x]^2?

I found some examples of Mathematica's commands usage in an old manual but the program gives me different result than expected ...
1answer
151 views

Why is ReplaceAll behaving like this?

I'm learning to use the ReplaceAll function and I found the behavior of which is quite confusing. For Sqrt[f[x, y]] /. f[___] -> u Mathematica returns ...
2answers
474 views

Expand modulus squared

Is it possible to make a function in Mathematica that expands expressions of the form $$|z + w|^2 = |z|^2 + 2\text{Re} \overline{z}w + |w|^2?$$ Preferably it should also be able to handle things ...
3answers
257 views

InverseSeries of multiple variables and multiple equations

CONTEXT Let us consider a bit of the Universe in which we draw spheres (see a high resolution image here). Astronomers have shown that the density within these spheres could be predicted quite ...
3answers
329 views

How can I convert a complex number a+b I to the exponent form A Exp(I phi)?

When I have an expression such as: (1/4 + I/4) ((1 - 2 I) x + Sqrt[3] y) it is hard to get an intuition of the number. So I want to convert it to the complex ...
3answers
475 views

How can I convert x^2 to x*x?

When I try the following code: a b^2 c /. b c -> e Mathematica gives me: a b^2 c but what I want is: ...
4answers
299 views

“Evaluating” polynomials of functions (Symbols)

I want to implement the following type evaluation symbolically $$(f^2g + fg + g)(x) \to f(x)^2 g(x) + f(x) g(x) + g(x)$$ In general, on left hand side there is a polynomial in an arbitrary number of ...
2answers
261 views

Shaping/simplifying equations in a certain way

A problem I am occasionally facing is to simplify an equation not to it's shortest form but to a form that is simple by other means. Often, this is grouping the term according to certain functions, ...
1answer
193 views

Most efficient way to determine conclusively whether an algebraic number is zero

Let x be an algebraic number of unspecified degree, expressed using arithmetic, rational powers, and algebraic integers (edit: ...
6answers
761 views

How do I replace a variable in a polynomial?

How do I substitue z^2->x in the following polynomial z^4+z^2+4? z^4+z^2+4 /. z^2->x ...
3answers
253 views

Distances between points in periodic cube

How can one implement more efficiently/elegantly/memory savvily the following function which returns a matrix of all Euclidian distances between points in 3D within a cube of width ...
4answers
358 views

How to implement dual numbers in Mathematica?

I wonder how can I implement dual numbers in Mathematica, so that all functions work well with them (as with complex numbers). Particularly, for each function $f$, ...
1answer
253 views

How do I expand a sum?

I have a problem with Mathematica's symbolic manipulations. As an example, consider the following expression: $$\sum _{i=1}^n -2 x_i \left(-a x_i-b+y_i\right)=0$$ How do I get Mathematica to expand ...
1answer
71 views

ToNumberField won't recognize Root[…] as explicit algebraic number

In Mathematica 9.0.1, it appears that ToNumberField will not always recognize a Root object as an explicit algebraic number. ...
2answers
629 views

How can I rationalize the denominator of an expression?

Mathematica doesn't rationalize the denominator automatically, and I haven't found anything in the documentation about it. But I found an old post on MathGroup, which proposes a solution using ...
2answers
293 views

Manipulating an equation into standard quadratic form?

Say I have an equation of the form $$u s + \frac{1}{v} + \frac{1}{p s + q} = 0$$ (or any form that can be written as a standard quadratic, really, the above form is just an example; they'll all be ...
1answer
187 views

RootSum result manipulation/simplification

Consider the sum sum1 = Sum[ k/( k^7 - 2 k + 3), {k, Infinity}] ...
4answers
854 views

Checking if two trigonometric expressions are equal

Say I have two trigonometric expressions which are a bit complicated. Is there a quick way to check if they reduce to the same thing (that they are equal) using Mathematica? I was solving this: \$y'' ...
4answers
2k views

Factoring polynomials to factors involving complex coefficients

I've run into some problems using Factor on polynomials with complex coefficient factors. Reading the documentation it looks like it only factors over the ...
3answers
115 views

Is there any way to collect only variables with a specific power?

Suppose I've got this: In[13]:= Expand[(a + b) (b + c) (c + a)] Out[13]= a^2 b + a b^2 + a^2 c + 2 a b c + b^2 c + a c^2 + b c^2 And I want to collect only ...
0answers
57 views

Apart may use Padé method: what's that?

How does Apart work? The page tutorial/SomeNotesOnInternalImplementation#7441 says, "Apart ...
3answers
460 views

What function can I use to evaluate $(x+y)^2$ to $x^2 + 2xy + y^2$?

What function can I use to evaluate $(x+y)^2$ to $x^2 + 2xy + y^2$? I want to evaluate It and I've tried to use the most obvious way: simply typing and evaluating $(x+y)^2$, But it gives me only ...
3answers
366 views

Square both sides of an equation?

Can I define an equation (for example, x+1 == y^2 + 2), and tell Mathematica to square both sides? If not, what is an equivalent way to achieve this?
6answers
304 views

How to simplify a complicated Sum in terms of power Sums?

For example, I have: $a=\sum _{r=1}^n x_r \left(\left(\sum _{i=1}^n x_i-x_r\right){}^2-\sum _{i=1}^n x_i^2\right)$ ...
2answers
108 views

How to protect pattern or subexpression when distributing / expanding expression?

I've got an expression like expr = (1-x)(a+b) that I would like to distribute / expand while keeping factors of (1-x) intact, ...
4answers
511 views

How to get exact roots of this polynomial?

The equation $$64x^7 -112x^5 -8x^4 +56x^3 +8x^2 -7x - 1 = 0$$ has seven solutions $x = 1$, $x = -\dfrac{1}{2}$ and $x = \cos \dfrac{2n\pi}{11}$, where $n$ runs from $1$ to $5$. With ...
1answer
145 views

Numbered symbols

I work with an exterior algebra over $R^n$. I have the basis $\{1,\omega_i\}_{i=1}^n$ in this algebra, and my differential operator is defined as d\omega_k=\sum_{i>j>0,i+j=k} (i-j)w_i\wedge ...
1answer
75 views

How to apply tags to expression terms?

I often see on this site and at the mathgroup the repeated questions on how to rearrange expression that Mathematica "likes" to keep in one form, but the user prefers in another. Consider this trivial ...
1answer
438 views

Reduce an equation by putting a new variable

I have the following equation given: $$(26-x)\cdot\sqrt{5x-1} -(13x+14)\cdot\sqrt{5-2x} + 12\sqrt{(5x-1)\cdot(5-2x) }= 18x+32.$$ In order to solve it, I want to substitute \$t = \sqrt{5x - ...
2answers
278 views

expanding a polynomial and collecting coefficients

I'm trying to expand the following polynomial ...
1answer
223 views

Move variable to one side of the equation

Say if I have a formula like so: a1*a2*a3^(a4 + 1)*(1 - E^(a5*a6/a3^a4/a2)) == 0 How do I move a3 to the right? I've tried to follow other examples here on stack ...
1answer
162 views

Finding mappings between expressions

Suppose we have an expression of the form: $j=\frac{A\left(t\right)}{B\left(t\right)}=\frac{C\left(s\right)}{D\left(s\right)}$ That is, $j$ can be expressed either as a function of $t$, or as a ...
7answers
215 views

Defining a function that completes the square given a quadratic polynomial expression

How can I write a function that would complete the square in a quadratic polynomial expression such that, for example, CompleteTheSquare[5 x^2 + 27 x - 5, x] ...
2answers
1k views

How to convert a system of parametric equations to a normal equation?

For example, I have a system of parametric equations (R is a constant number) : ...
2answers
102 views

Unexpected side effect of removing the Orderless attribute from Times

First I make Times orderless: ClearAttributes[Times, Orderless]; Then I evaluate ...
3answers
211 views

Is it possible to use Composition for polynomial composition?

I want to do this: $P = (x^3+x)$ $Q = (x^2+1)$ $P \circ Q = P \circ (x^2+1) = (x^2+1)^3+(x^2+1) = x^6+3x^4+4x^2+2$ I used Composition for testing if that could ...
3answers
238 views

Limiting form of a polynomial expression

When simplifying an expression by hand, a trick that is often used is to remove terms that are lower powers of the independent variable, for instance, as $x \rightarrow \infty$, $x^2 + x$ becomes ...
5answers
295 views

How to group certain symbolic expressions?

For example, I have the following expression : A( 2 x1 + B(y1 + y2) + 2 x2 ) How do I make the output look like this (grouping ...
3answers
125 views

How to extract phase angle from sinusoid

I'm doing some electric circuit calcualtions and I'm trying to get the phasor representation of some arbitrary function of Sin or Cos. Could be complex like: ...
2answers
95 views

How can I expand a inequality with Abs

I want Abs[x] + Abs[y] <= 1 to be convert to ...
1answer
40 views

Non commutative multiply- expand expression

I began to use Mathematica a few days. My problem is: How to expand expression like $(a+b)*(a+b)$, where this multiplication is non commutative? Mathematica can do this?
2answers
152 views

Eliminate several variables between five Conic_section equations

I want to eliminate x1, x2, y1, y2 between these 5 equations. I tried ...
1answer
157 views

How can I express an algebraic expression as a product?

I have a simply expression that I can see that I can express as a product. ...
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