Re: Simple questions about Mathematica
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg31943] Re: Simple questions about Mathematica
- From: uhap023 at alpha1.rhbnc.ac.uk (Tom Crane)
- Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 01:08:50 -0500 (EST)
- Organization: Dept. Physics, Royal Holloway, University of London
- References: <9v25kb$lcs$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
In article <9v25kb$lcs$1 at smc.vnet.net>, BobHanlon at aol.com writes: > > In a message dated 12/9/01 7:11:31 AM, stevebg at adelphia.net writes: > >>1. Suppose I solve some equations and get a complicated >>expression containing multiple identical elements such as >>sqrt(a^2+b^2). To make the expression smaller, clearer, and >>easier to deal with, I want to substitute say R=sqrt(a^2+b^2) >>everywhere in the main expression and have R available as >>a symbol from then on. I see nothing in Help or anywhere >>else about how to do this. But it's such a standard thing to >>do that there must be an easy answer. > 1. Use substitution rules: > [details removed] What would be nice would be something like Simplify[] or FullSimplify[] but which would identify common sub-expressions like the sqrt(a^2+b^2) above and substitute them automatically subject to some criteria. eg. produce a result which minimises the total numbers of terms (in the main expression plus all the substituted sub-expressions) subject to a minimum size of substituting sub-expression to prevent it doing silly things like turning, R=Sqrt[a^2+b^2) into, sub1=a sub2=b sub3=sub1*sub1 sub4=sub2*sub2 sub5=sub3+sub4 R=Sqrt[sub5] ... this being effectively what the FortranDef utility does. Tom. -- Tom Crane, Dept. Physics, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, England. Email: uhap023 at vms.rhbnc.ac.uk SPAN: 19.875 Fax: +44 (0) 1784 472794