Re: Re: unevaluated, hold, holdform
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg51015] Re: [mg50983] Re: unevaluated, hold, holdform
- From: DrBob <drbob at bigfoot.com>
- Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 04:49:37 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <vas7uiw8wg82@legacy>, <k0gbicmq07vc@legacy> <200409300852.EAA26559@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: drbob at bigfoot.com
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
> Notice that if you make: > a= unevaluated[[(4*x^2)/(2*x)] > > then, Numerator[a] also yields 2x No, Numerator[a] would yield just "a" from that input, because the previous line has two typos and doesn't get executed. Surely you meant: a=Unevaluated[(4*x^2)/(2*x)] Numerator[a] 2 x 2 x > I wonder if there are other packages which allow to > work the real form of ratios, specially when considering > that it is going to be the most important principle > of modern mathematics in future times. So reducing fractions was a mistake all these years, huh? That's very funny. Bobby On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 04:52:52 -0400 (EDT), "D. Gomez" <rationalmean at hotmail.com> wrote: > > Many thanks. I understand mathematica does not have > any "switch" to turn such automatic reduce-to-lowest off. > > Notice that if you make: > a= unevaluated[[(4*x^2)/(2*x)] > > then, Numerator[a] also yields 2x > > I wonder if there are other packages which allow to > work the real form of ratios, specially when considering > that it is going to be the most important principle > of modern mathematics in future times. > > Regards, > D. Gomez > > > > On 26 Sep 04 13:31:43 -0400 (EDT), highegg wrote: >> On 24 Sep 04 09:46:19 -0400 (EDT), D. Gomez wrote: >>> Dear all, >>> >>> A friend of mine need to get both the numerator and denominator of >> any >>> expression but he does not want it to be reduced to its lowest >>> form, i.e.: given the expression (4 x^2)/(2 x), he needs to extract >>> its Numerator: >>> Numerator[(4*x^2)/(2*x)]= 4 x^2, >>> however Mathematica always simplify it to its lowest form yielding: >>> (2*x) >>> as its Numerator, that's not what we are looking for. >>> We all know about the Hold, HoldForm, Unevaluated functions but >>> don't know how to get the Numerator by using at the same time those >>> hold functions. >>> Many thanks for your help, indeed. >>> D. Gomez >> >> hello Gomez, >> >> might not be what you will need, >> but in general, arguments given to a function are evaluated first >> (as an expression in brackets) >> if you want to prevent an argument from evaluation, >> Wrap it with the _Unevaluated_ function: >> Numerator[Unevaluated[(4*x^2)/(2*x)]] >> >> but be careful, if you use this as a function: >> f[x_]:=Numerator[Unevaluated[x]], >> >> f[(4*x^2)/(2*x)] won't work, the argument is pre-evaluated again! >> >> the best way to sort this out is to assign an argumant to the > function >> f: >> AppendTo[Attributes[f],HoldAll] >> >> now f[(4*x^2)/(2*x)] will give us what we want! >> (but note that f[x_]:=Numerator[x] still won't work!) > > ~ > ~ > ~ > ~ > > > > -- DrBob at bigfoot.com www.eclecticdreams.net