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A Combinatorics Problem - Product Rule Indices

asked 2010-12-07 14:38:21 +0100

I have a particular combinatorics problem where I would like to generate lists that look like this:

  • (n=1): [[1],[]], [[],[1]]
  • (n=2): [[1,2],[]], [[1],[2]], [[2],[1]], [[],[1,2]]
  • (n=3): [[1,2,3],[]], [[1,2],[3]], [[1,3],[2]], [[2,3],[1]], [[1],[2,3]], [[2],[1,3]], [[3],[1,2]], [[],[1,2,3]]

These sorts of combinations come from taking derivatives with respect to different variables of a product of two functions. Using subscripts $1,2,3$ to denote differentiation with respect to the variables $z_1,z_2,z_3$, respectively, I'm looking at computations of the form:

  • $\partial_{z_1} (fg) = f_1g + f g_1$
  • $\partial_{z_1} \partial_{z_2} (fg) = f_{12}g + f_1 g_2 + f_2 g_1 + f g_{12}$
  • $\partial_{z_1} \partial_{z_2} \partial_{z_3} (fg) = f_{123}g + f_{12}g_3 + f_{13}g_2 + f_{23}g_1 + f_1g_{23} + f_2g_{13} + f_3g_{12} + f g_{123}$

Is there a quick way to generate such a list in Sage? I'm not actually looking to perform these symbolic derivatives. I just used the differentiation to demonstrate where these combinations come from. (And check with you whether or not I'm computing them correctly.)

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answered 2010-12-07 15:18:53 +0100

I solved my own problem. The solution uses the function partitions_set. However, it only generates half of the derivatives I want. The other half is obtained by transposing / reversing the outputs:

sage: derivs = [1,2]
sage: for s in partitions_set(derivs,2):
          print s
          s.reverse()
          print s
[[1], [2]]
[[2], [1]]
sage: s = [derivs, []]; print s
[[1, 2], []]
sage: s.reverse(); print s
[[], [1, 2]]

For the case when $n=3$ I get what I want as well:

sage: derivs = [1,2,3]
sage: for s in partitions_set(derivs,2):
          print s
          s.reverse()
          print s
[[1], [2, 3]]
[[2, 3], [1]]
[[1, 2], [3]]
[[3], [1, 2]]
[[1, 3], [2]]
[[2], [1, 3]]
sage: s = [derivs, []]; print s
[[1, 2, 3], []]
sage: s.reverse(); print s
[[], [1, 2, 3]]

At the risk of sounding full of myself I'm going to answer my own question. Thanks to everyone who thought about it, though.

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Comments

what if we make questions appear anonymous?

Evgeny gravatar imageEvgeny ( 2010-12-07 15:45:15 +0100 )edit

I'm not sure if that's necessary. I just didn't want to appear that I was spamming ask.sage or trying to increase my karma. I was also, in part, trying to make a joke but I'm terrible at those. :)

cswiercz gravatar imagecswiercz ( 2010-12-07 15:55:33 +0100 )edit

that's the thing I'm not sure why people should worry about these issues, it's kind of silly IMO.

Evgeny gravatar imageEvgeny ( 2010-12-07 16:02:24 +0100 )edit

In that case I'm done worrying about it.

cswiercz gravatar imagecswiercz ( 2010-12-07 16:15:08 +0100 )edit

See also OrderedSetPartitions, which may be helpful.

Jason Bandlow gravatar imageJason Bandlow ( 2010-12-08 10:43:41 +0100 )edit

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Asked: 2010-12-07 14:38:21 +0100

Seen: 673 times

Last updated: Dec 07 '10