Advanced Search

Question: Do the simplest factorization

Question:Do the simplest factorization

Jose MQ 20
March 25 2009
0
Hello Folks I've been a Maple user for quite a bit and I've never found an easy way to do an extremely simple thing: just want to input an expression like (1/4)*a + (1/4)*b + (1/4)*c and get (1/4)*(a+b+c). I've tried the collect, factor, coeff, combine, simplify, expand commands and nothing seems to work. Maybe I'm choosing the wrong options for these commands. The fact is that I always end up with (1/4)*a + (1/4)*b + (1/4)*c or other arrangement of the expression, but I cannot get just the constant multiplied by the sum of the individual terms. The actual expression I'm trying to make more readable is: -1/4-(1/4)*x^2*y-(1/4)*x*y^2+(1/4)*y^2+(1/4)*x*y+(1/4)*x^2; (I know there is a Maple leaf somewhere to enter Maple expressions, but I can't find it anywhere, may be for Apple's Safari browser this function is not available ??) If you try to multiply that expression by 4 and then divide by 4 you get the same. Is there a way to indicate Maple that I just want to enter an expression and not to evaluate/simplify it automatically ? in such a way that if I enter (1/4)*(a+b+c I get exactly the same at the output. Thanking you in anticipation for your valuable help Jose MQ
Please Wait...