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Solve results

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg5061] Solve results
• From: dwarf at wam.umd.edu (Dwarf)
• Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 22:48:03 -0400
• Organization: University of Maryland, College Park, MD
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I recently came upon this and was wondering if it's a Solve bug, some
notation I'm not familiar with, or just an unfortunate happenstance.

When I give Mathematica the equation x^3-8==0, this is what it returns:

In[1]:=
Out[1]=

But if I first factor the polynomial instead:

In[2]:=
Out[2]=

if I use reduce instead of solve

In[3]:=
Out[3]=


My question is: why the different behaviors, and how can I tell in advance
which to use?

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