Re: TraditionForm Appears to be Inconsistent
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg99678] Re: TraditionForm Appears to be Inconsistent
- From: Szabolcs <szhorvat at gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 06:22:43 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <9293149.1241693402776.JavaMail.root@n11> <gu0bal$fsj$1@smc.vnet.net>
On May 9, 10:19 am, AES <sieg... at stanford.edu> wrote:
> In article <gu0bal$fs... at smc.vnet.net>,
> "David Park" <djmp... at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > One just has to get used to what simplifications Mathematica automatica=
lly
> > does and which ones it doesn't do. Some of the automatic ones are annoy=
ing,
> > such as 1/Sin[x] -> Csc[x].
>
> This particular one has always been particularly puzzling for me. In m=
y
> experience at least, more or less everyone uses Sin and Cos in writing
> out any expressions containing these functions, and practically no one
> ever uses Sec and Csc.
>
> Moreover, I'd make a small bet that if you took a large random sample of
> science and engineering professionals, approaching half of them would
> get the relationships between Sin and Cos, and Sec and Csc, wrong.
> ("Let's see -- it's COsine and COsecant, and then Sin and Secant --
> right?")
>
> Is there some fundamental mathematical or logical reason behind
> Mathematica's choice? Or some strongly embedded or historical
> convention in the field of symbolic algebra that leads to this being
> done?
prettify[expr_] := Module[{sin, cos, result},
result = expr /. {Csc[e_] -> 1/sin[e], Sec[e_] -> 1/cos[e]};
HoldForm[Evaluate[result]] /. {sin -> Sin, cos -> Cos}
]