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Re: why Pi is not recognized as a positive number?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg45367] Re: why Pi is not recognized as a positive number?
• From: Bill Rowe <readnewsciv at earthlink.net>
• Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 01:35:10 -0500 (EST)
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

On 1/2/04 at 4:23 AM, pedrito6 at softhome.net (Pedro L) wrote:

>   I wanted to define a function for the positive numbers. But I discovered
>   something "strange" with Mathematica.

<snip Mathematica notebook example>

The pattern x_Positive matches a thing named x with Head Positive. Since Pi doesn't have head Positive f is left unevaluated when defined as

f[x_Positive]:= 1 + x

You can get the result you want with Positive by either defining f as

f[x_/;Positive@x]:= 1 + x  or
f[x_]:= 1 + x/;Positive@x
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