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The side-effects of mixing TraditionalForm inside expressions.

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg110761] The side-effects of mixing TraditionalForm inside expressions.
• From: "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma at 12000.org>
• Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2010 06:02:14 -0400 (EDT)
• Reply-to: nma at 12000.org

FYI,

When I typed the following:

-----------------------------
Clear[z]
c = 1 + I; p = -9 + 3*I; t = 3.3;
d = 1 - Exp[t*p]/z;

expr1 = c/TraditionalForm@d;
expr2 = c/d;

(expr1 - expr2) /. z -> 1
--------------------------------

I was expecting to get ZERO, as I do when I do not use TraditionalForm, 
but instead got:

(-0.9999999999999455 - 0.9999999999998298*I) + (1 + I)/
    1.0000000000001124` + 5.779350816615805`*^-14 I

Then I read in the help for TraditionalForm

"Output from TraditionalForm cannot necessarily be given as unique and 
unambiguous input to Mathematica"

And the above seems to explain this result. Too bad, because I wanted to 
use TraditionalForm inside an expression to format parts of it using a 
function which requires this wrapper.

My lesson of the day: do not use TraditionalForm inside expressions.

--Nasser

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: The side-effects of mixing TraditionalForm inside expressions.
    • From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akozlowski@gmail.com>