Re: Re: canonical mathematical expression represenation?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg52534] Re: [mg52511] Re: [mg52484] canonical mathematical expression represenation?
- From: "Blimbaum, Jerry AA R22" <jerry.blimbaum at navy.mil>
- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 05:57:55 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
David.... Mathgroup to me is like Golf....both have really humbled me.... Jerry blimbaum -----Original Message----- From: David Park [mailto:djmp at earthlink.net] To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net Subject: [mg52534] [mg52511] Re: [mg52484] canonical mathematical expression represenation? Yes it is annoying the way Mathematica tends to get the minus signs where we would prefer not to have them. One way to fix this, in simple expressions at least, is to Map Minus to the two factors you would wish to change. Sum[a^k, {k, 0, M}] MapAt[Minus, %, {{1, 1}, {2}}] (-1 + a^(1 + M))/(-1 + a) (1 - a^(1 + M))/(1 - a) I find that it is almost always possible to manipulate expressions to the form you want, textbook form say, but it is a bit of an art and sometimes even I have to come to MathGroup to learn the trick. David Park djmp at earthlink.net http://home.earthlink.net/~djmp/ From: nospam nospam [mailto:nospam_please at nospam.com] To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net I noticed that Mathematica represents expressions with some specific 'way' or order. For example, Sum[a^k, {k, 0, M}] gives -1 + a^(1+M) ------------- -1 + a How can I make it display the expression, in what I would consider a more 'natural' way, as follows 1 - a^(1+M) ------------- 1 - a I am sure there is a way to do, and why do you think Mathematica does it the way it does? what is the logic of how it represents things? is there a command to convert the first output to the second? I tried few commands, but can not figure it out. thank you, --nospam