Re: Bug in Sum?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg109145] Re: Bug in Sum?
- From: Erik Max Francis <max at alcyone.com>
- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:11:15 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <hq0mqo$k1b$1@smc.vnet.net>
gopher wrote:
> In the following, A and Expand[A] give different answers after when
> summed (a finite geometric series.) The result of summing A is clearly
> wrong, since it is independent of the parameters r and s.
>
> Abhishek
>
> In[44]:= A = x^(i - n) (x^(i - n) (1 - r x^n) - s);
> A == Expand[A] // Simplify
>
> Out[45]= True
>
> In[46]:= Sum[A, {i, 0, n - 1}]
>
> Out[46]= (x^(-2 n) (-1 + x^(2 n)))/(-1 + x^2)
>
> In[47]:= Sum[Expand[A], {i, 0, n - 1}] // FullSimplify
>
> Out[47]= -((
> x^(-2 n) (-1 + x^n) (-1 + x^n (-1 + r + s + s x + r x^n)))/(-1 + x^2)
> )
They're both equal. FullSimplify on the first sum results in the same
thing:
In[17]:= Sum[A, {i, 0, n - 1}] // FullSimplify
Out[17]= -((
x^(-2 n) (-1 + x^n) (-1 + x^n (-1 + r + s + s x + r x^n)))/(-1 + x^2)
)
By default Mathematica doesn't do a FullSimplify, so you end up with
different, but equal answers. If you do FullSimplify on both, then the
answers are not only equal, but identical.
--
Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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