Strange phenomenon
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg32135] Strange phenomenon
- From: "Steve Gray" <stevebg at adelphia.net>
- Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2001 00:46:56 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
I do a calculation involving the product of four 5x5 matrices containing
a bunch of E^(2PiI/5) type terms, and get an answer containing
stuff like the following (I did Copy As > Plain Text)
\!\(\(\(\(\(\(+2\)\ zr\^4 - \((\(-1\))\)\^\(3/5\)\ \((1 +
List - \((5 + List)\)\ zr +
7\ zr\^2 + \((\(-6\) + List)\)\ zr\^3 +
zr\^4)\) + \((\(-1\))\)\^\(1/5\)\ \((\(-2\) +
List\ \((1 + zr + 2\ zr\^2)\) -
zr\ \((\(-3\) +
zr\ \((7 + \((\(-4\) +
zr)\)\ zr)\))\))\) + \((\(-1\))\)\^\(2/5\)\
\
It looks like Mathematica thinks "List" is a variable. Doing ?List just
says that
"{e1,e2,...) is a list of elements. More..."
I'm sure that I have not used List, or anything else starting with a
capital letter,
as one of my symbols.
Does anyone know why this might be happening? I'm a novice programmer in
Mathematica but have experience with C (more than enough to hate it!).
Other than this oddity, I'm getting good results with my Mathematica code (after
getting more or less used to the odd syntax).
Thanks in advance for any info.