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fateman@cs.berkeley.edu's profile - activity

2014-10-18 16:24:59 +0100 answered a question integral from sin at plus minus infinity seems to be bad

Your problem is in your input. These various systems are guessing differently about what you mean by integration from minf to inf. either it means limit (integrate(f(x),x,-a,a) as a->inf)

or limit(limit (integrate(f(x),x,a b) as a->-minf, b-> minf) in some unspecified order.

What you mean is ???

The idea that this is a bug to be patched in the computer system is fundamentally incorrect. What has to be fixed is you (or in general, the user's) expectation that something he/she sees in mathematical discourse that is essentially an abuse of notation, can be interpreted either by literally computing with it, or by guessing it means something else.

It is apparent that neither Sage nor Maxima addresses this adequately, which might be to quiz the user as to what is meant