Re: Rearranging terms - user-defined
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg127109] Re: Rearranging terms - user-defined
- From: "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma at 12000.org>
- Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2012 02:05:25 -0400 (EDT)
- Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com
- References: <jsmgen$1mf$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: nma at 12000.org
On 6/30/2012 4:21 AM, drehstuhl2 at googlemail.com wrote: > Does anyone know how to tell mathematica the following: > > I have an expression like: a + bx -by > and I want to factorise it like: a + b(x-y) > How about just simplify or collect? In[5]:= Simplify[a+b x-b y] Out[5]= a+b (x-y) In[6]:= Collect[a+b x-b y,b] Out[6]= a+b (x-y) > BUT: I want Mathematica to show the difference (x-y) whenever possible >(in the different calculations - not just place b outside the bracket). >That's because equations are easier to discuss if they are written in a special way. > do not understand this one. > Another example would be: using probabilities, I always want to write >mathematica -(1-p) instead of -p+1 throughout the notebook. > I do not know how to do this, because Mathematica evaluator will always simplify -(1-p) to -p+1, other than using HoldForm, but then you can't use the result without releasing the Hold: In[17]:= expr/.Plus[1,Times[-1,x_]]->HoldForm[-(1-x)] Out[17]= -(1-p) May be there is a way. I do not know myself now. --Nasser