Re: Re: What to do in v. 6 in place of Miscellaneous`RealOnly
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg76709] Re: [mg76653] Re: What to do in v. 6 in place of Miscellaneous`RealOnly
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
- Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 04:30:48 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
- References: <f33ork$l7l$1@smc.vnet.net> <200705251035.GAA08064@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu
That is really not a solution to the problem: the poster undoubtedly
expects to be able to obtain, and plot, an inverse of the cubing
function R -> R with that inverse defined on the entire real line R.
One root difficulty here is that a "function" really should consist of
three things: a set that is its domain, a set that is its codomain, and
the "rule" for assigning to each element of the domain an element of the
codomain.
Unfortunately, in ordinary calculus, and before, there is a tacit
understanding that, given a rule (usually, just a formula involving a
variable x), the function has as domain all the real values of x that
produce real values from the formula. And so if one is given a
one-to-one function from R to R, its inverse should also be a function
from R to R.
In Mathematica in many cases a function has tacit domain a subset of the
set of complex numbers C -- and at times it is unclear what that
domain is -- and then the codomain is C.
Another root difficulty is the use of a power function. That, of
course, is what makes Mathematica want to use the principal cube root in
the sense of complex numbers.
Jens-Peer Kuska wrote:
> Hi,
>
> just try it ...
>
> Plot[] will remove all not-plotable values and
>
> Plot[x^(1/3), {x, -2, 2}]
>
> show nothing on the negative part of the x-axes
> and
> Plot3D[(x + y)^(1/3), {x, -2, 2}, {y, -2, 2}]
> will be cutted along the x==-y line.
>
> So, do nothing and remove the RealOnly package.
>
> Regards
> Jens
>
>
> Helen Read wrote:
>> Suppose my calculus students want to plot x^(1/3), for say {x,-8,8}. The
>> problem, of course, is that Mathematica returns complex roots for x<0.
>> In past versions of Mathematica, we could get the desired real roots
>> (and plot the function) by loading the package Miscellaneous`RealOnly. I
>> guess we can still do it that way (and ignore the "obsolete package"
>> message), but is there a suggested way of doing what we need in 6.0?
>>
>> --
>> Helen Read
>> University of Vermont
>>
>
--
Murray Eisenberg murray at math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts 413 545-2859 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street fax 413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305
- References:
- Re: What to do in v. 6 in place of Miscellaneous`RealOnly
- From: Jens-Peer Kuska <kuska@informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
- Re: What to do in v. 6 in place of Miscellaneous`RealOnly