# Version 7 and 8, different behavior of NSolve. Is it reproducible?

I noticed the following difference, and I wonder if it's a problem of my system or the results difference is actually due to the two different versions

oldsa = {0.29289321881345254 -
0.6666666666666666 Sin[0.5235987755982988 + phi] ==
0.75 Cos[psi1], -0.7071067811865475 + h +
0.6666666666666666 Cos[0.5235987755982988 + phi] ==
0.75 Sin[psi1], -0.5 +
0.6666666666666666 Sin[0.5235987755982988 - phi] ==
0.75 Cos[psi2], -0.4660254037844386 + h +
0.6666666666666666 Cos[0.5235987755982988 - phi] ==
0.75 Sin[psi2]}

NSolve[oldsa, {h, phi, psi1, psi2}]


gives solutions in Mathematica version 7, and no solution in ver. 8 Both run on Ubuntu 12.04 x64 Do you get the same resuts?

-
Yes, I find the same issue, it works in ver.7 and ver.9 yielding a list of 24 solutions and also this message : NSolve::ifun: Inverse functions are being used by NSolve, so some solutions may not be found; use Reduce for complete solution information. >> but it does not work in ver.8 i.e. it yields {}. –  Artes Dec 20 '12 at 11:38
Haha not only that, but, in v8, if you apply the replacement rule /. 0.5235987755982988 -> π/6 it DOES produce a solution –  gpap Dec 20 '12 at 11:50
Confirming. Solution in 7 on Linux and no solution in 8.0.4 on Windows. –  Andreas Lauschke Dec 20 '12 at 11:59
@Artes Well, in my v8, if you define oldsa2 = oldsa/. 0.5235987755982988 -> π/6 (i.e. copy-paste the numerical value from within the trig functions and replace it with its symbolic equivalent), then NSolve[oldsa, {h, phi, psi1, psi2}] gives {} and NSolve[oldsa2, {h, phi, psi1, psi2}] gives a list of solutions of length 24! –  gpap Dec 20 '12 at 12:57
To all the commenters, thank you guys –  Fabio Dalla Libera Dec 20 '12 at 13:09

Just adding to how strange this is in version 8 where the code below has been tested.

First, observe that the numerical value within the trigonometric function (0.523599) is $\pi/6$:

0.5235987755982988== π/6


gives

True


Now, as above, define the equation to solve

oldsa = {0.29289321881345254 -
0.6666666666666666 Sin[0.5235987755982988 + phi] ==
0.75 Cos[psi1], -0.7071067811865475 + h +
0.6666666666666666 Cos[0.5235987755982988 + phi] ==
0.75 Sin[psi1], -0.5 +
0.6666666666666666 Sin[0.5235987755982988 - phi] ==
0.75 Cos[psi2], -0.4660254037844386 + h +
0.6666666666666666 Cos[0.5235987755982988 - phi] ==
0.75 Sin[psi2]}


and a version of it with the numerical value of $\pi/6$ replaced by the symbolic π/6, i.e.

oldsaSymbolic = oldsa/. 0.5235987755982988 -> π/6


Indeed,

NSolve[oldsa, {h, phi, psi1, psi2}]


gives

{}


But

NSolve[oldsaSymbolic, {h, phi, psi1, psi2}]


gives 24 solutions!?!

-