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Newbie question: introducing symbols (variables) inside vectors and matrices

asked 2014-08-19 18:18:57 +0100

stablum gravatar image

updated 2015-01-14 10:32:24 +0100

FrédéricC gravatar image

Hi,

I would like to have linear algebra operations to be evaluated with symbols instead of numerically. For example, having the following matrix:

A = matrix(QQ,[
    [2,1,2,-6],
    [-1,2,1,7],
    [3,-1,-3,-1],
    [1,5,6,0],
    [2,2,1,1]
    ])

I would like to multiply for a vector with symbolic variables as follows:

t = 'real'
var('x1')
assume(x1,t)
var('x2')
assume(x2,t)
var('x3')
assume(x3,t)
var('x4')
assume(x4,t)
xx = vector(QQ,[x1,x2,x3,x4])
A * xx.transpose()

Unfortunately building the xx vector is unsuccessful, producing this error message:

TypeError: Cannot evaluate symbolic expression to a numeric value.

This does not work, so how can I use symbols in sage's linear algebra framework?

thank you very much, -Francesco

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answered 2014-08-19 19:19:43 +0100

kcrisman gravatar image

Why don't you try not specifying a ring for the vector?

xx = vector([x1,x2,x3,x4])

It should then put things in the "symbolic ring" SR which should do what you need it to.

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Comments

Thanks! It worked! :)

stablum gravatar imagestablum ( 2014-08-19 20:16:25 +0100 )edit

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Asked: 2014-08-19 18:18:57 +0100

Seen: 753 times

Last updated: Aug 19 '14