Solving Large Equations with wxMaxima - What is up with %r1?

[Sparky_]

I have a set of several equations -

The coefficients are rather large.

I thought I would be smart and not go through all the mess of solving them by hand

I have used wxMaxima some and carefully entered each equation into wxMaxima - using its Solve function

I'm getting:

[[X1=-230942730/(%r1-23900000),
X2=112626/3125,
Tx1=%r1,
Tx2=333975528125/18771]]

what is up with the %r1?

For what it's worth the Tx2 - I feel pretty good about that number it seems about what I would expect, X2 - I could believe that number - not too bad from my gut feel.

anybody here use wxMaxima and know about this?

OR

Can anybody suggest a "free" software package that could solve ~ 7 equations 7 unknows with large numbers?

-Sparky

 

[TylerH]

algsys([2*x+y=10, 3*x+2*y=17], [x,y]);
Solves 2x+y=10 and 3x+2y=17 for x=3 and y=4.

If your equations are linear, you can use linsolve in place of algsys, for a slight speed increase.

Could you post the command you tried?

 

[Sparky_]

I used "Solve" in wxMaxima.

 

[TylerH]

Post it with the arguments you used. Otherwise, I can't tell why it output %r1.

 

[statdad]

I have a set of several equations -

The coefficients are rather large.

I thought I would be smart and not go through all the mess of solving them by hand

I have used wxMaxima some and carefully entered each equation into wxMaxima - using its Solve function

I'm getting:

[[X1=-230942730/(%r1-23900000),
X2=112626/3125,
Tx1=%r1,
Tx2=333975528125/18771]]

what is up with the %r1?

For what it's worth the Tx2 - I feel pretty good about that number it seems about what I would expect, X2 - I could believe that number - not too bad from my gut feel.

anybody here use wxMaxima and know about this?

OR

Can anybody suggest a "free" software package that could solve ~ 7 equations 7 unknows with large numbers?

-Sparky

Usually the %r1 indicates that your system has infinitely many solutions - this is WxMaxima's way of writing them in parametric form: %r1 is the single free parameter.