Re: Mathematica goes Bad
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg59580] Re: Mathematica goes Bad
- From: Maxim <ab_def at prontomail.com>
- Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 03:37:57 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <200508090730.DAA19089@smc.vnet.net> <ddcb4g$5bk$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 07:42:08 +0000 (UTC), Daniel Lichtblau <danl at wolfram.com> wrote: > > I think it is safe to say that symbolic calculus is fraught with > problematic areas where, for example, mistakes involving a combination > of branch cuts and arithmetic with infinities can lead to erroneous > results. I do not see any evidence of this sort of phenomenon in the > example above, though. That was just a design decision. While you may > think it was the wrong thing to do, it is not symptomatic of deep > mathematical flaws. > > I will note that by our metrics the number of open bugs in Limit dropped > sharply between versions 4 and 5 of Mathematica (I am not going to > quantify more closely than that). > > > Daniel Lichtblau > Wolfram Research > Certainly this model of directed infinities has some peculiar properties. For example, some functional identities don't hold when infinite quantities are involved: In[1]:= E^Infinity*E^(I*Pi) == E^(Infinity + I*Pi) Out[1]= False So E^(a + b) != E^a*E^b. This also means that Exp is not a continuous function anymore: In[2]:= Limit[E^(x + 2*I*ArcTan[x]), x -> Infinity] Out[2]= Infinity This is the result we get if we interchange Exp and Limit operations, which is equivalent to continuity. However, the correct result is -Infinity (Arg tends to Pi). Also I think Mathematica often has problems with examples where the path along which the limit is taken or the path of integration isn't a straight line from the origin: In[3]:= Integrate[(1 - Log[z])/z^2, {z, -1 - I, I*Infinity}] Out[3]= (-(1/8) - I/8)*(3*Pi + 2*I*Log[2]) NIntegrate understands this as the integral along the line (-1 - I) + t*I with t running from 0 to Infinity, and Integrate works the same way, as can be seen from simpler examples. But then Out[3] is incorrect, because the antiderivative Log[z]/z is discontinuous on the path of integration, and the result is 2*Pi*I less than the correct value of the integral. Maxim Rytin m.r at inbox.ru
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- References:
- Mathematica goes Bad
- From: "Igor Touzov" <igor@nc.rr.com>
- Mathematica goes Bad