Re: Readability confuses mathematica?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg44512] Re: Readability confuses mathematica?
- From: "David W. Cantrell" <DWCantrell at sigmaxi.org>
- Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 02:27:04 -0500 (EST)
- References: <botcm2$ci7$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
patrick.m.lahey at aero.org (patrick_m_lahey) wrote: > I am new to mathematica so perhaps there is a simple answer to this > > Consider: > > In[1]:= D[x-x0,x] > > except that x0 is really x ctrl-- 0 (x subscript 0). Normally that > would be a completely independent variable from x but not according to > mathematica! > > Out[1]=1-Subscript(1,0)[x,0] > > (the (1,0) is a superscript of Subscript). > > One of the things that attracted me to mathematica was the ability to > work with expressions that closely mirrored the true expressions of > interest (a readability issue really...). > > Is there anything that can be done here? Considering that Subscript[x,0] appears to involve x itself, I suggest that you use _literally_ D[x-x0,x] or D[x-x_0,x], either of which gives just 1, as desired. David