# Solve contains wrong solution

 0 Hello, I tried to following to find a maxima of a function: var('t x'); f=(e^(x*t))*(x-1)^2; maxima = solve([derivative(f,x)==0, derivative(f,x,2)<0],x) show(maxima);  And the solution sage spits out are: [ [x == 1, -2 > 0], [x == (t - 2)/t, -(t - 2)^2 + 2*(t - 2)*t - t^2 + 6 > 0] ]  I understand that sage cannot evaluate the validity of the second solution but the first one surely is no solution at all. Why does it give me this solution or am I doing anything wrong? asked Dec 01 '12 maweki 1 I know, that I could only solve for f'(x)==0 and filter for f''(x)<0 but solve shouldn't contain solutions like that, I think.maweki (Dec 02 '12)

 0 I would not agree with you that these solutions are 'wrong'. They are just presented in a very user unfriendly way. The 1st one, i.e.: [x == 1, -2 > 0]  definitely is a solution - it just specifies a range of measure zero, since sage: -2>0 False  so, it is not 'wrong' as you state - it is just 'totally useless' ;) The other solution is also perfectly ok since sage: bool(-(t - 2)^2 + 2*(t - 2)*t - t^2 + 6) True  so, the solution you want is x == (t - 2)/t  which I think is ok ..... however I would definetely agree with you that In[1]:= f[x_, t_] = Exp[x t] (x - 1)^2; In[2]:= Solve[{D[f[x, t], x] == 0 , D[f[x, t], {x, 2}] < 0, {x, t}] Out[2]= {{t -> ConditionalExpression[-(2/(-1 + x)), (t | x) \[Element] Reals]}}  from a well known competitor is far more user friendly posted Dec 02 '12 Mark 56 ● 3
 0 This is a bug (?) in to_poly_solve in Maxima. (%i1) load(to_poly_solver); Loading maxima-grobner $Revision: 1.6$ $Date: 2009-06-02 07:49:49$ (%o1) /Applications/MathApps/Sage-5.4.1-OSX-64bit-10.6.app/Contents/Resources/\ sage/local/share/maxima/5.26.0/share/contrib/to_poly_solver.mac (%i3) display2d:false; (%o3) false (%i4) to_poly_solve([2*(x-1)*%e^(t*x)+t*(x-1)^2*%e^(t*x)=0,4*t*(x-1)*%e^(t*x)+t^2*(x-1)^2*%e^(t*x)+2*%e^(t*x)>0],[x]); (%o4) %union([x = 1,2 > 0],[x = (t-2)/t, t^2-2*(t-2)*t-4*t+4*(t-2)+(t-2)^2+2 > 0])  The current Maxima has (%o4) %union([x = 1,2 > 0],[x = (t-2)/t, t^2-2*(t-2)*t-4*t+4*(t-2)+(t-2)^2+2 > 0])  which is basically the same issue. I've reported this upstream https://sourceforge.net/p/maxima/bugs/2512/">here. posted Dec 03 '12 kcrisman 7827 ● 20 ● 78 ● 170
 0 I beg to differ : Maxima 5.28.0 http://maxima.sourceforge.net using Lisp GNU Common Lisp (GCL) GCL 2.6.7 (a.k.a. GCL) Distributed under the GNU Public License. See the file COPYING. Dedicated to the memory of William Schelter. The function bug_report() provides bug reporting information. (%i1) load(to_poly_solve); Loading maxima-grobner $Revision: 1.6$ $Date: 2009-06-02 07:49:49$ (%o1) /usr/share/maxima/5.28.0/share/to_poly_solve/to_poly_solve.mac (%i2) display2d:false; (%o2) false (%i3) f(x,t):=(%e^(xt))(x-1)^2; (%o3) f(x,t):=%e^(xt)(x-1)^2 (%i4) map(factor,%solve([factor(diff(f(x,t),x))=0,factor(diff(diff(f(x,t),x),x))<0],x)); (%o4) %union([x = 1,-2 > 0],[x = (t-2)/t,2 > 0]) which is correct. Note that I load()ed to poly solve, not to_poly_solver ; according to a comment in the former source, the latter is obsolete. HTH,  Emmanuel Charpentier  posted Dec 25 '12 Emmanuel Charpentier 1 ● 1