[LON-CAPA-users] Maxima is being fussy

[Gerd Kortemeyer]

Hi,

On Feb 21, 2012, at 6:56 PM, Seema Ali wrote:

> I don't really understand how the abs()<0.0000001 tolerance works for an algebraic expression.

There should not be a need for a tolerance.

>  So I decided to go nuts with the trigsimp() and trigreduce() functions.  I applied it to both functions and then did the subtraction and applied it again.
> 
> is(trigsimp(trigreduce(trigsimp(trigreduce(RESPONSE[1]))- trigsimp(trigreduce(g(x)))))=0);
> 
> It seems to be working, but is this approach full proof?

It does seem weird that this would be needed. Can you use MAXIMA from the command line, enter your previous expressions by hand, and see what MAXIMA says?

- Gerd.