Re: Symbolic math with the 35s (well.. sort of) Message #4 Posted by Dieter on 27 Aug 2010, 5:21 p.m., in response to message #2 by gene wright
Hi Gene,
thank you very much for your friendly reply. And I thought I had read all the learning modules. Well, so it seems I've reinvented the wheel. #-)
However, there still is one thing I'd like to know. In part 2 the learning module says on page 6:
Quote:
Where more than one solution is possible, for example ASIN(Y)=0, the direct solution is the "principal" value. For example, for ASIN(Y)=0, this is 0 degrees, not 180 degrees, or –180 degrees
If I understand this example correctly, the only solution of the equation arcsin(y) = 0 simply is y = sin(0) = 0, so there is exactly one single result for this equation. Did I miss something here?
On the other hand, the solver obviously does not try a direct solution if periodic functions like sin(), cos() or tan() are involved. In this case a direct solution would require e.g. an arcsine which in fact has an infinite number of possible values. So, as far as I can see, an equation like sin(x) = 0.5 is always solved numerically, so that it will return x = 30 or x = 150 or any other solution, depending on the user's initial guesses.
Sorry, I don't want to bore you with these details, but I just want to know... ;-)
Regards, Dieter
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