Re: Algebraic Expression Manipulation

duli wrote:

I want to use (-1)^2 =1 in the expressions below. So

(-1)^(2x+2y) should simply to 1. Relations between x and y
are not relevant to this computation.


So you have to tell your CAS (and the newsgroup) that x
and y are integers.
For example in Maple:
simplify((-1)^(2*x+3*y)) assuming integer;
gives (-1)^y




D Herring wrote:
duli wrote:
I posted this to the mathematica newgroup but somehow it never
appeared. So I am positing it here.

The Mathematica group is moderated; your post was probably dropped.

I need a way to take an expression like
(-1)^(2x + 3 y) and be able to reduce it to (-1)^y.

I don't see how that simplification is possible unless we know more
about x and y; maybe x=-y?

In Mathematica, try
Simplify[(-1)^(2x+3y), x==-y]

I could not figure out how to do this in Mathematica and need
suggestions as to how one might go about doing this in other packages
(like Maple).

Most packages have some variant of the simplify command...

Daniel

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