Re: More questions on expanding function names
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg8263] Re: More questions on expanding function names
- From: Paul Abbott <paul at physics.uwa.edu.au>
- Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 01:59:01 -0400
- Organization: University of Western Australia
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Paulo Mouat wrote: > Suppose I want to write a report that uses many of the advanced > mathematical functions supported by Mathematica. It makes sense to > obtain an explicit mathematical form even if only to indicate that from > then on Erf[x] would be a shorthand to 2/Sqrt[Pi] Integrate ... The easy way of finding a definition for Erf[x] is to select the "Erf" with the mouse and do "Find in Help..." under the Help menu. Note that I write "a" definition rather than "the" definition because Mathematica is not actually using the integral definition when computing symbolic or numeric values. Instead it could be using a more general hypergeomteric definition (or minimax approximation for numerical computations). > Also, I was interested in such representations so as to obtain explicit > mathematical forms in intermediate or final results, avoiding the use > of function names. Since simple mathematics can lead to more > complicated mathematics upon certain calculations, I would like to avoid > the introduction of advanced function names so that the output is > readable by someone not familiar with the particular Mathematica > representation of advanced functions. I don't think this will help. In fact I think it is a bad idea. Leaving all the integrals there will just complicate the output -- which is one reason why special functions like erf(x) were introduced in the first place! If any function arises that you have not heard of -- say the Meijer G function -- simply select the function and look it up in Help. Cheers, Paul ____________________________________________________________________ Paul Abbott Phone: +61-8-9380-2734 Department of Physics Fax: +61-8-9380-1014 The University of Western Australia Nedlands WA 6907 mailto:paul at physics.uwa.edu.au AUSTRALIA http://www.pd.uwa.edu.au/Paul God IS a weakly left-handed dice player ____________________________________________________________________