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Find a single solution to a system of equations

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg121833] Find a single solution to a system of equations
• From: "jamievicary at NgOmSaPiAlM.com" <jamievicary at gmail.com>
• Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 01:32:42 -0400 (EDT)
• Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com

Hi,

I have a system of equations, and want to use Mathematica to find a
single solution. It's no good using Solve, because then Mathematica
tries to find all solutions, and that takes too long. It's no good
containing FindInstance, because my equations contain unknowns.

To illustrate this last point, consider the input
   FindInstance[a==b,a]
I want Mathematica to return to me the solution
   {{a->b}}
but it doesn't -- it fails, because FindInstance can't cope with
independent variables in the expression.

So, I either need a watered-down Solve, that doesn't try to find every
solution, or a beefed-up FindInstance, that doesn't mind about the
independent variables.

Thanks!
Jamie.