On Feb 11, 8:10 am, "Dr. David Kirkby" <david.kir...@onetel.net> wrote: > On 02/11/11 09:34 AM, daly wrote:
> > >> FWIW, I just noticed that Mathematica treats 2/1 as an integer and not > >> as a rational. > No, 2/1 is not treated as an integer, it is converted to an integer and its history is lost. That is to say, GCD[2/1 ...] is never really computed because 2/1 is changed to 2, and it computes GCD[2 ...] I think it is pointless to try to gather insight to your concern about algebraic categories by typing questions into the (current) top-level commands in Mathematica. [ though anything could be re- programmed. e.g. you could write a whole category system and while you are at it, write a system for doing polynomial arithmetic using arrays, etc etc.] But to a pretty good approximation, Mathematica just messes around with trees. It was designed by a physicist, presumably for physicists, and not for people who want to be so picky about math :) -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
