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### Why does this happen with FullSimplify? [duplicate]

It is stated at the Wolfram Documentation Center (FullSimplify/Possible Issues) that: Why and when this could happen? How to avoid it? Any patterns? Edit: As pointed out in the comments, this ...
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### Is the letter “s” special in Mathematica? [duplicate]

I'm finding that the two versions of the expression below evaluate differently: ...
3k views

### What is the difference between a few simplification techniques?

I am trying to understand the difference between Refine, Simplify and FullSimplify, and when ...
1k views

### Variable naming changes everything

I am having a rather unusual problem I do not understand with Mathematica where renaming one of the variables of my function causes the function to stop "working". Here is the example of the code ...
569 views

### Surprises simplifying simple polynomials

I came across some somewhat surprising behavior of Simplify today, on something very simple. Let's take two cubic polynomials that we know have the same value: ...
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### A better simplification function

I am creating this question and posting an answer to it as a help for those who have problems with Mathematica simplification oddities that appear in many other questions on the site. First of all, ...
191 views

### Unable to evaluate reasonable max expression

Consider the following statement: Max[0, Sqrt[1 - Cos[4 \[Theta]]]] You'll find that Mathematica won't evaluate this, because it doesn't know the range of ...
699 views

### Why doesn't FullSimplify get rid of the common factor in this expression?

FullSimplify does not get rid of the z factor in the following expression: ...
393 views

### How Simplify and Assume can be combined on matrix products?

What I am trying to do is to simplify some expressions involving matrices! The problem is that Simplify[] considers the simplifications based on alphabetical order and everything is Commutative. For ...
234 views

### How to find the most compact form of an equation

I would like to know whether there is any general approach to obtain the most compact form of an equation with Mathematica. I used to believe that the ...
193 views

### Simplify equations with pattern assumptions

When simplifying an expression using Simplify[expr, assumptions], the assumptions has to be explicit. Is it possible to simplify an expression with pattern ...
225 views

### Why does simplification in Mathematica depend on variable names

Mathematica fails to put the following into an obvious simplest form: ...