Re: A question of simplification
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg20988] Re: [mg20953] A question of simplification
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <andrzej at tuins.ac.jp>
- Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 21:41:04 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
I assume you do mean to the dot product when you use "." don't you? The
reason why you get left with 0.f[x] is that Mathematica considers all your
symbols as scalars rather than vectors and does not know what the dot
product of the scalar 0 with something else is. So you have two possible
approaches. Either work explicitly with vectors, e.g.:
In[21]:=
D[{c1, c2, c3}.{f1[x], f2[x], f3[x]}, x]
Out[21]=
c1 f1'[x] + c2 f2'[x] + c3 f3'[x]
or teach Mathematica the following new rule:
In[23]:=
In[92]:=
Unprotect[Dot];
Dot /: Dot[___, 0, ___] := 0
Protect[Dot];
so that now:
In[26]:=
D[c.f[x], x]
Out[26]=
c . f'[x]
> From: Xiong Zhenhua <eexiong at ee.ust.hk>
> Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 01:50:20 -0500 (EST)
> To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
> Subject: [mg20988] [mg20953] A question of simplification
>
> In Mathematica, when using partial differentiation, we get
> D[c.f[x]]=0.f[x]+c.f'[x], not c.f'[x]. So, when the equation is long,
> the result will be very tedious.
> How can I simply the result to c.f'[x]? I have tested Simplify and
> FullSimplify. It does not work.
> Please help me! Thanks!
>
> Green
>
>