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Mathematica will never make assumptions you don't tell it to make, and will state all conditions under which the answers it gives are valid. While this is overall a good thing, this often leads to answers that are more general than is desired. While including positivity or reality requirements in the assumptions can help, it doesn't fix everything, and it can sometimes be quite difficult to determine where the sticking point is and how to solve it. For example, sometimes radicals of perfect square expressions won't be taken outside the radical because the assumptions don't prove that expression is positive (or it can't figure out that this follows from the assumptions).

So what I'm looking for is a sort of "unsafe" simplify. A simplify that's allowed to assume that all parameters are in the ranges that allow simplification of expressions, that make sums and integrals converge, that are in the principal domains of relevant inverse functions, etc. And, in fact, to make these assumptions even if they cannot all be true and let me worry about the potential contradictions.

Is there a way to make something like this?

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    $\begingroup$ PowerExpand might sometimes do what you want. For integration, in some cases maybe GenerateConditions->False will be useful. $\endgroup$ Feb 24 at 14:40
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    $\begingroup$ I think that in the general way that the question is posed, the answer is no. The reason is that you want something that takes care of everything. Perhaps some concrete examples? Or concrete operations? Also, see what @DanielLichtblau mentioned which will take you up to a certain point. $\endgroup$
    – bmf
    Feb 24 at 14:44
  • $\begingroup$ @bmf I'll try to come up with some illustrative examples from problems I've worked on. Might take a bit. $\endgroup$ Feb 24 at 14:48

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