Re: equations with unknowns for 86

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Re: equations with unknowns for 86

>  Go to [2ND] [SIMULT] and where it says order= then enter 6 and work from
>  there. Just look up Simultaneous equations in the manual. It's there.
>  I looked it up the other day.
>
>  At 11:19 PM 6/3/98 -0700, Nic Werner wrote:
>  >I know the 86 solves 30 equations with 30 unknowns, but I have 6 eqz
>  with 6
>  >unknowns and I want to make the calculator solve them. The manual isn't
>  >much help at all, can someone help me figure out how to enter these
>  >equations and everything?
>  >
>  >                        Nic.
>  >

The instructions in the manual (pg. 208) do seem to be very clear. A couple of
points that should be noted:

A. The simultaneous equations must be _linear_ equations.  Solving
   systems of non-linear equations is still not an automatable task!

B. On a calculator that doesn't have the short-cut simultaneous solver
   that the TI-86 sports, you just set up matrices and perform the
   proper matrix operations.  Surely any textbook explanation of what
   is going on will explain things in this way.  The TI-86 lets you
   _export_ the coefficients you enter in the solver (and the solution
   arrived at) in matrix form, but it doesn't seem to let you _import_
   existing matrices into the solver.  Thus the solver seems to be an
   appropriate tool for a "one-off" solution, but if you had a whole
   series of problems to solve that involved systematically varying the
   coefficients you would want to use matrices even on the TI-86.

C. The manual reminds users that the coefficents can be complex numbers.
   You don't often meet systems with complex coefficients in elementary
   mathematics courses (in traditional courses).  Here is another case
   of where what we _can_ do at an elementary level has gotten ahead of
   our knowledge (my knowledge, anyway!) of _why_ we would want to do
   that.  Does anyone know of some interesting and accessible
   applications of systems of linear equations with comple coefficients?

RWW Taylor
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester NY 14623

>>>> The plural of mongoose begins with p. <<<<

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