On Friday, March 24, 2006 5:56 PM Igor Khavkine wrote: > ... > Start up Axiom, and type in the following integral > > integrate(sqrt(1+x^(-2/3)),x) > > Then type in the same integral again > ... > Clearly, Axiom takes two different paths through the integration > algorithm, even when give identical input. What is the cause of > the branch? Is there a non-deterministic step somewhere in the > algorithm?
I don't know the cause of this behaviour but I get the same effect on the Windows version of Axiom. > > Incidentally, is there a canonical form for radical expressions > in which the two forms of the answer can be compared and directly > shown to be the same? > It's not based on a canonical form, but this seems to work: A1 := integrate(sqrt(1+x^(-2/3)),x) A2 := integrate(sqrt(1+x^(-2/3)),x) A1-A2 Surprised? :) Regards, Bill Page. _______________________________________________ Axiom-math mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-math
