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a first-time user question

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg39352] a first-time user question
• From: "Ye Hu" <huye at wharton.upenn.edu>
• Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 03:52:57 -0500 (EST)
• Organization: University of Pennsylvania
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I have a simple (supposedly) question...

I used the following command to draw a plot, but Mathematica could not run
properly.

Plot[x^(2/3),{x,-1,0}]


I know the problem is about calculating (-1)^(1/3) in mathematica. Although
(-1)^(1/3) = -1,
mathematica tries to calculate it numerically and gives complex results
0.5+0.8i
How to solve this problem and restrict the solution to be only real numbers?

Thanks very much.

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