Re: Sum question and general comment
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg50664] Re: Sum question and general comment
- From: Jens-Peer Kuska <kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
- Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 07:54:42 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Universitaet Leipzig
- References: <ci8m99$bpg$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi, atleast fir the Sum[] over i (belonging to) {1,2,3,5,7,8,21} I have a possible solution Unprotect[Sum] Sum[expr_, {i_, indexlist_List}] := Plus @@ ( (expr /. i -> #) & /@ indexlist) Protect[Sum] The first case "Sum over i=1 to 100 except i!= 23 and 36" can be done if you create a list and remove the indicies that you don't need. For the last case with the double sum and i!=j I would use (1-KroneckerDelta[i,j]) because that is a very common notation. Regards Jens Steve Gray wrote: > > I don't want to overload the group with my questions, so I only post after > not being able to find the answer in the Help or at the site. Part of the > problem of course is that it isn't clear how to state the question so that > I can look it up*. Anyway, the current question has to do with Sum and > similar "indexed" operations: > > I find no way to do, for example, > "Sum over i=1 to 100 except i!= 23 and 36", etc., or Sum over values belonging to a list, such as > "Sum over i (belonging to) {1,2,3,5,7,8,21}", etc., or > "Sum ( i=1 to 10) Sum (0ver j=1 to 10 but j !=i)", etc. (this can be awkwardly done with j=1 to i-1 > and j=i+1 to 10) > In some cases there can be workarounds using things like > (1- KroneckerDelta[i,j]), etc., but these can get complicated and obscure. > I would have thought that Mathematica could do operations like these directly, > but ??. Thank you for any information. > > Steve Gray > > * Someone who makes major progress on the problem of letting users communicate with a computer in > ordinary, appropriate technical "people" language will have big success. Currently in almost all > software one must ask using exactly the right terms. (I realize that Microsoft and others are trying > to make progress here, but it's negligible so far in my opinion.) Part of the answer would be a > greatly expanded index, compiled knowing what terms people are likely to use for their questions.