Adding zero to an expression and avoiding simplification

savecancel

But after a substitution those two terms are always going to add to zero, right?

Yes as they should. But when expressions are of the form $E_x = \frac{1}{2} \, {\left({{E}_x^-} e^{\left(i \, k x\right)} + {E_x^+} e^{\left(-i \, k x\right)}\right)} e^{\left(i \, \omega t\right)} + \frac{1}{2} \, {\left(\overline{{E_x^+}} e^{\left(i \, k x\right)} + \overline{{{E}_x^-}} e^{\left(-i \, k x\right)}\right)} e^{\left(-i \, \omega t\right)}$ and $E_y = \frac{1}{2} \, {\left({{E}_y^-} e^{\left(i \, k x\right)} + {E_y^+} e^{\left(-i \, k x\right)}\right)} e^{\left(i \, \omega t\right)} + \frac{1}{2} \, {\left(\overline{{E_y^+}} e^{\left(i \, k x\right)} + \overline{{{E}_y^-}} e^{\left(-i \, k x\right)}\right)} e^{\left(-i \, \omega t\right)}$. This can yield to two different expressions for pol_y that might seem different at first but are equivalent.