Re: overloading times operator
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg88829] Re: overloading times operator
- From: Michael Weyrauch <michael.weyrauch at gmx.de>
- Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 23:29:01 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <g0m918$3n$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: michael.weyrauch at gmx.de
Hello, I really recommend to use NonCommutativeMultiply[] for a non- commutative product and give it the desired properties (or any other operator without built-in properties). Overloading Times[] is potentially breaking Mathematica internals, which is probably the reason for your strange results. But I cannot further comment on your problem until you give a precise definition of your non-commutative product. (In any case, if you use NonCommutativeMultiply for your produvt, you also must define NonCommutativeExpand separately.) Michael Weyrauch gstaples schrieb: > I wrote a procedure to define the non-commutative product of two elements of the form e_X e_Y, where X and Y are multi-indices. I do this using Times. > > I do a simple calculation like > > Expand[(e_{1} + e_{3})(e_{1} - e_{3})] > > and get the wrong answer. (On the first try.) > > If I then re-execute the code that defines the multiplication, I repeat the calculation and get correct output. > > Alternatively, if I execute > > e=Symbol["e"] > > before loading the procedure, I get correct output on the first try. > > More troubling is that after getting correct output, if I perform calculations of a different kind (e.g. matrix multiplication), when I repeat my original calculation, I start getting incorrect output again. (Until I re-execute the code that defines the multiplication.) > > It's frustrating to repeat a calculation and get different sets of output depending on what other calculations are done in between. > > Does anyone have suggestions? >