Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research (Aug 2012)
On Some Unsolved Problems of Mathematica
Abstract
In this paper, some unsolved problems of the Mathematica software package are documented. At first, it is shown, using a number of examples, that the processing (simplification) of rational-fractional expressions involving powers in the general form, has been implemented in Maple more carefully than in Mathematica. Then, an error in Mathematica is demonstrated, leading to incorrect results at a change of a function’s body. For each example of symbolic or symbolic-numeric computations, alternate routes for solving the emerged problem are proposed (where possible). An added problem, related to Mathematica’s computing speed is documented, employing examples related to two-dimensional gas dynamics problems. It is shown that Mathematica computes rather slowly (about one thousand times slower) compared to a Fortran code.