Why does Matlab not evaluate a symbolic expression when using subs()? - matlab

This is the code along with the output.
>> syms x
>> y=-(x-2*sin(x))/(1-2*cos(x))
y =
(x - 2*sin(x))/(2*cos(x) - 1)
>> x=1.9
x =
1.9000
>> subs(y)
ans =
-(2*sin(19/10) - 19/10)/(2*cos(19/10) - 1)
I can't figure out why this absurd answer is coming. I am not able to fix it.
So far I have tried taking y also as a symbolic variable and using int(ans) , with no success. I have also tried storing ans in a non-symbolic variable, but the same output shows up every time.

You need to use double on the result to evaluate the symbolic expression and get a numeric value:
>> out = double(subs(y))
out =
-0.004494059516242

subs will substitute the value in your expression, but it will stay symbolic and will not be computed. In order to get the value numerically you need eval instead of subs.

eval(subs(...)) also work. I don't know what is better to use eval either double, my teacher uses double

Related

Matlab: Using sym in limit

Say I have the following symbolic function:
syms f(t)
f(t)=sin(t)/t
I want to get the limit using another symbolic function. I tried:
syms lim(x)
lim(x)=limit(f(t),t,x)
But when I tried to use lim(0) I got this error:
Error using symengine (line 59)
Division by zero.
Can this be fixed?
Take a look at lim(x). For some reason the limit is gone. I don't really understand what is going wrong there. If you use an anonymous function instead of a function handle, the evaluation of limit is postponed until x has a value and it works.
>> lim=#(x)limit(f(t),t,x)
lim =
#(x)limit(f(t),t,x)
>> lim(0)
ans =
1
Matlab does not have delayed assignments as discussed here. Therefore, when lim is created, the call to limit is immediately evaluated with x replacing t:
>> syms t x f(t) lim(x)
>> f(t) = sin(t)/t
f(t) =
sin(t)/t
>> lim(x) = limit(f(t),t,x)
lim(x) =
sin(x)/x
And when you evaluate lim(0), you get sin(0)/0, which throws the error.

Solve equation with exponential term

I have the equation 1 = ((π r2)n) / n! ∙ e(-π r2)
I want to solve it using MATLAB. Is the following the correct code for doing this? The answer isn't clear to me.
n= 500;
A= 1000000;
d= n / A;
f= factorial( n );
solve (' 1 = ( d * pi * r^2 )^n / f . exp(- d * pi * r^2) ' , 'r')
The answer I get is:
Warning: The solutions are parametrized by the symbols:
k = Z_ intersect Dom::Interval([-(PI/2 -
Im(log(`fexp(-PI*d*r^2)`)/n)/2)/(PI*Re(1/n))], (PI/2 +
Im(log(`fexp(-PI*d*r^2)`)/n)/2)/(PI*Re(1/n)))
> In solve at 190
ans =
(fexp(-PI*d*r^2)^(1/n))^(1/2)/(pi^(1/2)*d^(1/2)*exp((pi*k*(2*i))/n)^(1/2))
-(fexp(-PI*d*r^2)^(1/n))^(1/2)/(pi^(1/2)*d^(1/2)*exp((pi*k*(2*i))/n)^(1/2))
You have several issues with your code.
1. First, you're evaluating some parts in floating-point. This isn't always bad as long as you know the solution will be exact. However, factorial(500) overflows to Inf. In fact, for factorial, anything bigger than 170 will overflow and any input bigger than 21 is potentially inexact because the result will be larger than flintmax. This calculation should be preformed symbolically via sym/factorial:
n = sym(500);
f = factorial(n);
which returns an integer approximately equal to 1.22e1134 for f.
2. You're using a period ('.') to specify multiplication. In MuPAD, upon which most of the symbolic math functions are based, a period is shorthand for concatenation.
Additionally, as is stated in the R2015a documentation (and possibly earlier):
String inputs will be removed in a future release. Use syms to declare the variables instead, and pass them as a comma-separated list or vector.
If you had not used a string, I don't think that it would have been possible for your command to get misinterpreted and return such a confusing result. Here is how you could use solve with symbolic variables:
syms r;
n = sym(500);
A = sym(1000000);
d = n/A;
s = solve(1==(d*sym(pi)*r^2)^n/factorial(n)*exp(-d*sym(pi)*r^2),r)
which, after several minutes, returns a 1,000-by-1 vector of solutions, all of which are complex. As #BenVoigt suggests, you can try the 'Real' option for solve. However, in R2015a at least, the four solutions returned in terms of lambertw don't appear to actually be real.
A couple things to note:
MATLAB is not using the values of A, d, and f from your workspace.
f . exp is not doing at all what you wanted, which was multiplication. It's instead becoming an unknown function fexp
Passing additional options of 'Real', true to solve gets rid of most of these extraneous conditions.
You probably should avoid calling the version of solve which accepts a string, and use the Symbolic Toolbox instead (syms 'r')

Error using integral: A and B must be floating-point scalars

I want to evaluate the simple example of integral
a = max(solve(x^3 - 2*x^2 + x ==0 , x));
fun = #(x) exp(-x.^2).*log(x).^2;
q = integral(fun,0,a)
and the error is
Error using integral (line 85)
A and B must be floating-point scalars.
Any tips? The lower limit of my integral must be a function, not a number.
The Matlab command solve returns symbolic result. integral accepts only numeric input. Use double to convert symbolic to numeric. As your code is written now, already max should throw an error due to symbolic input. The following works.
syms x;
a = max(double(solve(x^3 - 2*x^2 + x)));
fun = #(x) exp(-x.^2).*log(x).^2;
q = integral(fun,0,a)
Output: 1.9331.
the lower limit of my integral must be a function, not a number
integral is a numeric integration routine; the limits of integration must be numeric.
Check values of a by mouse over in breakpoint or removing the ; from the end of the line so it prints a. Based on the error, a is not a scalar float. You might need another max() or double() statement to transform the vector to a single value.
Solve Help : http://www.mathworks.com/help/symbolic/solve.html
Integral Help : http://www.mathworks.com/help/ref/integral.html

Evaluate Matlab symbolic function

I have a problem with symbolic functions. I am creating function of my own whose first argument is a string. Then I am converting that string to symbolic function:
f = syms(func)
Lets say my string is sin(x). So now I want to calculate it using subs.
a = subs(f, 1)
The result is sin(1) instead of number.
For 0 it works and calculates correctly. What should I do to get the actual result, not only sin(1) or sin(2), etc.?
You can use also use eval() to evaluate the function that you get by subs() function
f=sin(x);
a=eval(subs(f,1));
disp(a);
a =
0.8415
syms x
f = sin(x) ;
then if you want to assign a value to x , e.g. pi/2 you can do the following:
subs(f,x,pi/2)
ans =
1
You can evaluate functions efficiently by using matlabFunction.
syms s t
x =[ 2 - 5*t - 2*s, 9*s + 12*t - 5, 7*s + 2*t - 1];
x=matlabFunction(x);
then you can type x in the command window and make sure that the following appears:
x
x =
#(s,t)[s.*-2.0-t.*5.0+2.0,s.*9.0+t.*1.2e1-5.0,s.*7.0+t.*2.0-1.0]
you can see that your function is now defined by s and t. You can call this function by writing x(1,2) where s=1 and t=1. It should generate a value for you.
Here are some things to consider: I don't know which is more accurate between this method and subs. The precision of different methods can vary. I don't know which would run faster if you were trying to generate enormous matrices. If you are not doing serious research or coding for speed then these things probably do not matter.

How do I make a function from a symbolic expression in MATLAB?

How can I make a function from a symbolic expression? For example, I have the following:
syms beta
n1,n2,m,aa= Constants
u = sqrt(n2-beta^2);
w = sqrt(beta^2-n1);
a = tan(u)/w+tanh(w)/u;
b = tanh(u)/w;
f = (a+b)*cos(aa*u+m*pi)+a-b*sin(aa*u+m*pi); %# The main expression
If I want to use f in a special program to find its zeroes, how can I convert f to a function? Or, what should I do to find the zeroes of f and such nested expressions?
You have a couple of options...
Option #1: Automatically generate a function
If you have version 4.9 (R2007b+) or later of the Symbolic Toolbox you can convert a symbolic expression to an anonymous function or a function M-file using the matlabFunction function. An example from the documentation:
>> syms x y
>> r = sqrt(x^2 + y^2);
>> ht = matlabFunction(sin(r)/r)
ht =
#(x,y)sin(sqrt(x.^2+y.^2)).*1./sqrt(x.^2+y.^2)
Option #2: Generate a function by hand
Since you've already written a set of symbolic equations, you can simply cut and paste part of that code into a function. Here's what your above example would look like:
function output = f(beta,n1,n2,m,aa)
u = sqrt(n2-beta.^2);
w = sqrt(beta.^2-n1);
a = tan(u)./w+tanh(w)./u;
b = tanh(u)./w;
output = (a+b).*cos(aa.*u+m.*pi)+(a-b).*sin(aa.*u+m.*pi);
end
When calling this function f you have to input the values of beta and the 4 constants and it will return the result of evaluating your main expression.
NOTE: Since you also mentioned wanting to find zeroes of f, you could try using the SOLVE function on your symbolic equation:
zeroValues = solve(f,'beta');
Someone has tagged this question with Matlab so I'll assume that you are concerned with solving the equation with Matlab. If you have a copy of the Matlab Symbolic toolbox you should be able to solve it directly as a previous respondent has suggested.
If not, then I suggest you write a Matlab m-file to evaluate your function f(). The pseudo-code you're already written will translate almost directly into lines of Matlab. As I read it your function f() is a function only of the variable beta since you indicate that n1,n2,m and a are all constants. I suggest that you plot the values of f(beta) for a range of values. The graph will indicate where the 0s of the function are and you can easily code up a bisection or similar algorithm to give you their values to your desired degree of accuracy.
If you broad intention is to have numeric values of certain symbolic expressions you have, for example, you have a larger program that generates symbolic expressions and you want to use these expression for numeric purposes, you can simply evaluate them using 'eval'. If their parameters have numeric values in the workspace, just use eval on your expression. For example,
syms beta
%n1,n2,m,aa= Constants
% values to exemplify
n1 = 1; n2 = 3; m = 1; aa = 5;
u = sqrt(n2-beta^2);
w = sqrt(beta^2-n1);
a = tan(u)/w+tanh(w)/u;
b = tanh(u)/w;
f = (a+b)*cos(aa*u+m*pi)+a-b*sin(aa*u+m*pi); %# The main expression
If beta has a value
beta = 1.5;
eval(beta)
This will calculate the value of f for a particular beta. Using it as a function. This solution will suit you in the scenario of using automatically generated symbolic expressions and will be interesting for fast testing with them. If you are writing a program to find zeros, it will be enough using eval(f) when you have to evaluate the function. When using a Matlab function to find zeros using anonymous function will be better, but you can also wrap the eval(f) inside a m-file.
If you're interested with just the answer for this specific equation, Try Wolfram Alpha, which will give you answers like:
alt text http://www4c.wolframalpha.com/Calculate/MSP/MSP642199013hbefb463a9000051gi6f4heeebfa7f?MSPStoreType=image/gif&s=15
If you want to solve this type of equation programatically, you probably need to use some software packages for symbolic algebra, like SymPy for python.
quoting the official documentation:
>>> from sympy import I, solve
>>> from sympy.abc import x, y
Solve a polynomial equation:
>>> solve(x**4-1, x)
[1, -1, -I, I]
Solve a linear system:
>>> solve((x+5*y-2, -3*x+6*y-15), x, y)
{x: -3, y: 1}