Re: Complete Factorization?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg7152] Re: [mg7128] Complete Factorization?
- From: "C. Woll" <carlw at u.washington.edu>
- Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 01:57:50 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
On Sun, 11 May 1997, Thomas Skipper wrote: > Does anyone know why MMA would not be able to completely factor this: > 2xy-4y^2? > MMA will only factor out the 2, not the reamaining y, and consistently > leaves only 2(xy-2y^2) Is there a reason why it won't completely > factor this to 2y(x-2y)? The MMA book says that "Factor" performs a > "complete" factorization, but obviously that is not the case. > Iguess the main question is, will MMA completely factor a polynomial > or not, and if so, what is the command that WILL perform a complete > factorization? > Hi Thomas, It tried it out, and Mma had no problems factorizing your expression, so my guess is that you gave Mma the input 2 xy - 4 y^2 and not 2 x y -4 y^2. That is, Mma interpreted your xy as a single variable and not the product of x and y. Carl