Re: mathematica newbie trouble
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg99281] Re: [mg99276] mathematica newbie trouble
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
- Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 05:55:24 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
- References: <200905010952.FAA02056@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu
Briefly, SetDelayed (:=) does not evaluate what's on the right-hand-side
until the left hand side is evaluated. The trouble with your code is
that you really want s to be a function of a,b,c, that is, to get its
value after a, b, c get their values. And then you need to make the s
on the right-hand side of your definition of k to depend explicitly on
a,b,c. So change the two definitions to the following (and no
terminating semicolons are required):
s[a_, b_, c_] := (a + b + c)/2
k[a_, b_, c_] :=
Sqrt[s[a, b, c](s[a, b, c] - a)(s[a, b, c] - b)(s[a, b, c] - c)]
Then your k should work as expected.
A bit better, avoid the long expression now inside the square-root by
making some use of Mathematica's list-processing ability and functional
programming:
k[a_, b_, c_] := Sqrt[Times @@ (s[a, b, c] - {0, a, b, c})]
What happens on the right-hand side there is the following: The
quantity s[a,b,c] is evaluated just once. From it each of the numbers 0,
a, b, c is subtracted ("in parallel"). Then Times is Apply'ed to the
result, in other words, the differences are multiplied.
Guapo wrote:
> i wrote the following mathematica code:
>
> s := (a + b + c)/2;
> k[a_, b_, c_] := Sqrt[s (s - a) (s - b) (s - c)];
> k[3, 4, 5]
> k[5, 9, 12]
>
> when run it, i can't get the write answer. but i change setDelayed(:=)
> to set(=), everything works ok
>
> s = (a + b + c)/2;
> k[a_, b_, c_] = Sqrt[s (s - a) (s - b) (s - c)];
> k[3, 4, 5]
> k[5, 9, 12]
>
> i did a google search for the difference of set and setDelayed,
> however, i still can't understand it for the upper described problem,
> could anyone explain it? great thanks.
>
--
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:
- mathematica newbie trouble
- From: Guapo <yangshuai@gmail.com>
- mathematica newbie trouble