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Re: get a, b from numbers in the form a+b Pi

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg119167] Re: get a, b from numbers in the form a+b Pi
  • From: Albert Retey <awnl at gmx-topmail.de>
  • Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 06:28:11 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <iraq88$ls8$1@smc.vnet.net>

Hi,

> I have lists  of numbers (Mathematica output) all numerically in the
> form a + b*Pi and I'm trying to extract the values of a and b for
> further work.
>
> Here's an example of the best I've been able to do so far:
>
> nums={1/2 (-2+\[Pi]),-2+(3 \[Pi])/4,-(11/3)+(5 \[Pi])/4,5/48 (-64+21
> \[Pi]),-(61/5)+(63 \[Pi])/16,-(338/15)+(231 \[Pi])/32};
> {FullForm[#][[1,1]],FullForm[#][[1,2]]/\[Pi]}&/@nums
>
> When I run this line of code 4 of the six input numbers give me the
> {a,b} I'm looking for but the first and fourth entries fail because the
> form isn't right. Possibly I could patch this scheme to look for a small
> finite set of possibilities of input number form but I suspect I may a
> long way from attacking this problem correctly.
>
> Can someone offer some other ideas on how to pull this off? Many thanks
> for looking at this. Rob

I was surprised that CoefficientList does work with Pi as a variable, 
which makes the whole task as simple as:

CoefficientList[#, Pi] & /@ nums

hth,

albert


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