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Re: Simplify and Gather Terms in a Polynomial

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg46448] Re: Simplify and Gather Terms in a Polynomial
  • From: adam.smith at hillsdale.edu (Adam Smith)
  • Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 03:01:55 -0500 (EST)
  • References: <c0uu2k$e74$1@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Manipulating an expression from one form to another is always tricky
in Mathematica.  But here is my suggestion for this case

In[16]:=
x*Expand[Simplify[y*(x+x^2)/x]]

Out[16]=
x (y+x y)

This is clearly an odd way to do it and only works for this specific
case.  Perhaps some of the gurus know a more generally applicable
approach.

In my opinion Mathematica is not really designed to transform one form
to another.  If I want to check whether two forms are equivalent, I
subtract them and use Simplify or FullSimplify to confirm that their
difference equals 0.  Sometimes it is necessary to apply things like
Expand, PowerExpand, etc. as intermediate steps.

Adam Smith


sabrinacasagrande at hotmail.com (sabbri) wrote in message news:<c0uu2k$e74$1 at smc.vnet.net>...
> I have two equivalent polynomial expressions. In the second, which
> should derive from the first, terms are gathered respecting to a
> particular variable. for example:
>  y(x+ x^2)
> I want to make it gathered for x
> x(y+yx)
> How can I give this command?


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