Derivative of Root objects
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg23831] Derivative of Root objects
- From: Gianluca Gorni <gorni at dimi.uniud.it>
- Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 03:00:57 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hello! It seems that the derivative in the form f'[x] and in the form D[f[x] ,x] behave differently when f[x] contains Root objects. My version is 4.0 for PowerMac. Example: f[x_] = Root[#^3 - x &, 1]; f'[x] gives 0 (wrong, of course) D[f[x], x] gives 1/(3*Root[-x + #1^3 & , 1]^2) (right) %%%%%%%%%%% I take the opportunity to submit a shortcoming of FullSimplify that I have just found, for developer use: expr = y*Root[-3*y*#1 + 2*#1^3 & , 3]^2; The third derivative of expr is zero: D[expr, {y, 3}]//FullSimplify gives 0. Still, FullSimplify does not realize that the second derivative is constant: D[expr, {y,2}]//FullSimplify gives a complicated expression. Developer`ZeroQ fails too, because Developer`ZeroQ[D[expr, {y,2}]-(D[expr, {y,2}] /. y->1)] gives False. Best regards, Gianluca Gorni -- +---------------------------------+ | Gianluca Gorni | | Universita` di Udine | | Dipartimento di Matematica | | e Informatica | | via delle Scienze 208 | | I-33100 Udine UD | | Italy | +---------------------------------+ | Ph.: (39) 0432-558422 | | Fax: (39) 0432-558499 | | mailto:gorni at dimi.uniud.it | | http://www.dimi.uniud.it/~gorni | +---------------------------------+