Re: Re: Simplification and Arg[]
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg66612] Re: [mg66603] Re: [mg66593] Simplification and Arg[]
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
- Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 03:01:47 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
On 23 May 2006, at 07:14, David Park wrote:
> Andrew,
>
> For doing complex algebra the BIG, BIG command is ComplexExpand.
> One can
> hardly get along without it. But for some reason, users starting
> out with
> complex algebra on Mathematica frequently overlook it. (Maybe they
> should
> have called it ComplexSimplify?)
I don't think so: it quite properly called ComplexExpand because it
"expands". In fact, for purely real expressions it will usually
return the same output as Expand:
ComplexExpand[(a + b)*(c + d)]
a*c + b*c + a*d + b*d
On the other hand if a and b are complex, the expression returned by
ComplexExpand will certainly in general not be simpler than the
original one:
ComplexExpand[(a + b)*(c + d), {a, b, c, d}]
(-Im[a])*Im[c] - Im[b]*Im[c] - Im[a]*Im[d] - Im[b]*Im[d] + Re[a]*Re
[c] + Re[b]*Re[c] + Re[a]*Re[d] + Re[b]*Re[d] +
I*(Im[c]*Re[a] + Im[d]*Re[a] + Im[c]*Re[b] + Im[d]*Re[b] + Im[a]*Re
[c] + Im[b]*Re[c] + Im[a]*Re[d] + Im[b]*Re[d])
I do not think I would call this "simplifying", would you? ;-)
Andrzej Kozlowski
Tokyo, Japan