Re: Magic number 23
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg41461] Re: [mg41445] Magic number 23
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 07:58:51 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
The meaning of "exact values" is not entirely clear. For example, the following can be considered an "exact value": TrigToExp[Cos[Pi/23]] 1/2/E^((I*Pi)/23) + (1/2)*E^((I*Pi)/23) and so can: FullSimplify /@ TrigToExp[Cos[Pi/23]] (1/2)*(-1)^(1/23) - (1/2)*(-1)^(22/23) and (RootReduce[FullSimplify[#1]] & ) /@ TrigToExp[Cos[Pi/23]] Root[1 - 2*#1 + 4*#1^2 - 8*#1^3 + 16*#1^4 - 32*#1^5 + 64*#1^6 - 128*#1^7 + 256*#1^8 - 512*#1^9 + 1024*#1^10 - 2048*#1^11 + 4096*#1^12 - 8192*#1^13 + 16384*#1^14 - 32768*#1^15 + 65536*#1^16 - 131072*#1^17 + 262144*#1^18 - 524288*#1^19 + 1048576*#1^20 - 2097152*#1^21 + 4194304*#1^22 & , 21] + Root[1 - 2*#1 + 4*#1^2 - 8*#1^3 + 16*#1^4 - 32*#1^5 + 64*#1^6 - 128*#1^7 + 256*#1^8 - 512*#1^9 + 1024*#1^10 - 2048*#1^11 + 4096*#1^12 - 8192*#1^13 + 16384*#1^14 - 32768*#1^15 + 65536*#1^16 - 131072*#1^17 + 262144*#1^18 - 524288*#1^19 + 1048576*#1^20 - 2097152*#1^21 + 4194304*#1^22 & , 22] Attempting to RootReduce this last expression seems indeed to take for ever (but I have little patience and a fairly slow computer) But presumably what you are are talking about is a "radical expression". Since the Galois group of cyclotomic extension over the rationals is solvable, we know that that all Cos[2Pi/n] and Sin[2Pi/n] can be expressed in terms of radicals, but I doubt that there is a practical algorithm for writing it out. In any case even if it exists implementing it in Mathematica would be of no practical value. Andrzej Kozlowski Yokohama, Japan http://www.mimuw.edu.pl/~akoz/ http://platon.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/andrzej/ On Tuesday, May 20, 2003, at 04:24 pm, Ingolf Dahl wrote: > Hello Mathgroup! > Mathematica knows the exact values of the trigonometric functions for > some > special angles. I was curious how many such values there are. In > principle, > there should be an infinite number of such angles available, if I have > got > it correctly: at least all angles which can be written as Pi times an > integer fraction, where the denominator can be written as a product of > powers of two and three. Also at least one factor five can be included > in > the denominator. I have not investigated further. The trigonometric > expressions might get very complicated, of course. Mathematica knows > about > the denominators 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 and 12. > In the attempt to investigate further, I asked Mathematica to perform > the > following operation: > > Table[Timing[FullSimplify[{i, Cos[Pi/i], Sin[Pi/i]}]], {i, 1, 22}] > > The first run of this command gives very varying times, from 0. Second > for > i=2 to 2.3 Second for i=19. If we change the limits of table, > Mathematica > get completely stuck at i=23 (?!?!). For i=29, it takes 119.73 Seconds, > while i=36 requires 0.06 Second. > > What is the magic of i=23? > > I think that this might be an interesting feature, not a bug, so > therefore I > send it to Mathgroup. To handle the case that this really is a bug, I > also > send it to the Wolfram support. > > I use Mathematica 4.2.0.0 on a fast Windows Me machine. > > Ingolf Dahl > Sweden > > > >