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Re: trig expansion

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg9323] Re: trig expansion
• From: Paul Abbott <paul at physics.uwa.edu.au>
• Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 02:47:39 -0500
• Organization: University of Western Australia
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Murray Eisenberg wrote:

> I find that really unpleasant to have to do!  I expect to be able to
> tell Mathematica that T = k/omega and that k is an integer and have
> *Mathematica* figure out what the Sin and Cos reduce to.
> 
> It's all a question of expectation vs. reality of the language design,
> of course.  Is my expectation unreasonable?

Let me ask another (related) question.  If you enter 

	BesselJ[n+1/2,x]

for k an integer what do you expect Mathematica to return?  My point is
that closed-form formulas exist as a consequence of n being an integer.
How far through the system do you expect this functionality to extend?

Cheers,
	Paul 

____________________________________________________________________ 
Paul Abbott                                   Phone: +61-8-9380-2734
Department of Physics                           Fax: +61-8-9380-1014
The University of Western Australia            Nedlands WA  6907       
mailto:paul at physics.uwa.edu.au  AUSTRALIA                            
http://www.pd.uwa.edu.au/~paul

            God IS a weakly left-handed dice player
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