Ask Your Question

# Revision history [back]

### define as-yet-unknown function

I'd like to know if there's a way of declaring functions in sage that are as-yet unknown. For example, let's say I have a function

p = R*T/v - a(T)/v/(v+b)


And I would like to be able to take a derivative like this

deriv(p,T)


and be given something back a partial derivative something like

R/v - diff(a,T)/v/(v+b)


However at present I can't seem to put an abstract function a(T) into my expression or find anything in the documentation that says how this is done.

As I recall there was a way to do this with wxMaxima, so maybe I just haven't found the trick in Sage yet.

### define as-yet-unknown function

I'd like to know if there's a way of declaring functions in sage that are as-yet unknown. For example, let's say I have a function

p = R*T/v - a(T)/v/(v+b)


And I would like to be able to take a derivative like this

deriv(p,T)


and be given something back a partial derivative something like

R/v - diff(a,T)/v/(v+b)
diff(a(T),T)/v/(v+b)


However at present I can't seem to put an abstract function a(T) into my expression or find anything in the documentation that says how this is done.

As I recall there was a way to do this with wxMaxima, so maybe I just haven't found the trick in Sage yet.

### Is there any way to define an as-yet-unknown functionfunction?

I'd like to know if there's a way of declaring functions in sage that are as-yet unknown. For example, let's say I have a function

p = R*T/v - a(T)/v/(v+b)


And I would like to be able to take a derivative like this

deriv(p,T)


and be given something back a partial derivative something like

R/v - diff(a(T),T)/v/(v+b)


However at present I can't seem to put an abstract function a(T) into my expression or find anything in the documentation that says how this is done.

As I recall there was a way to do this with wxMaxima, so maybe I just haven't found the trick in Sage yet.