Re: How do I eliminate premultipliers of "1." ?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg31154] Re: [mg31146] How do I eliminate premultipliers of "1." ?
- From: BobHanlon at aol.com
- Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 04:11:47 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
In a message dated 2001/10/13 4:16:23 AM, bap at roe.ac.uk writes: >Consider the following: > >In[1] := 1 a / 1 >Out[1] := a > >In[2] := 1.0 a / 1.0 >Out[2] := 1. a > >Now consider these identities: > >In[3] := (1 / 1) == 1 >Out[3] := True > >In[4] := (1.0 / 1.0) == 1.0 >Out[4] := True > >In[5] := (1 / 1) == 1.0 >Out[5] := True > >In[6] := (1.0 / 1.0) == 1 >Out[6] := True > >Given that it is clear mathematically that I want the >answer to In[2] to evaluate to just "a", and given that >Mathematica is clearly recognizing that 1.0 / 1.0 is the >same as 1 / 1, can someone please tell me why Out[2] contains >the premultiplier "1." and how to eliminate it in expressions >that might contain this superfluous unit multiplier in various places. > I would guess that it is retained to avoid implying that the result is exact. That is, since inexact numbers were involved, an inexact result should be returned. You can eliminate these artifacts using Rationalize. 1.0 a/1.0 // Rationalize a 2.645 + 1.0a/1.0 // Rationalize // N a + 2.645 Bob Hanlon Chantilly, VA USA