Skip to main content

symbolic - 1 is not the SameQ as Null, but why might 1 be Equal to Null?


The command


SameQ[1, Null]


returns


False

which is what I would expect, but the command


Equal[1, Null]

returns


1==Null


Why is Mathematica agnostic as to whether 1 is equal to Null ? Surely it is not ?



Answer



=== (SameQ) tests structural equality and is meant mainly for programming uses. Like nearly all functions named as ...Q, it evaluates immediately to either True or False.


== both represents and tests mathematical equality, and is meant for symbolic algebra use.


Thus when == is used with a symbol (or expression containing symbols) on either side, it will not evaluate. It stays unevaluated and it can be used to represent a mathematical statement. This is how we write equations in Mathematica, e.g. x^2 - 2 == 0.


Null has no meaning in symbolic algebra uses so here it is just treated as a symbol, which it is. Thus 1 == Null stays unevaluated the same way 1 == x does.


Mathematica is loosely typed: everything is an expression. You may put just about anything on either side of ==. The nature of the language does not make it practical or worthwhile for functions to try to give a special treatment for each kind of object. Since Null has no special meaning or use in symbolic algebra, it receives no special treatment from Equal.


Also consider that Mathematica will take things like Solve[Null^2 == 2, Null] with no complaint.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

functions - Get leading series expansion term?

Given a function f[x] , I would like to have a function leadingSeries that returns just the leading term in the series around x=0 . For example: leadingSeries[(1/x + 2)/(4 + 1/x^2 + x)] x and leadingSeries[(1/x + 2 + (1 - 1/x^3)/4)/(4 + x)] -(1/(16 x^3)) Is there such a function in Mathematica? Or maybe one can implement it efficiently? EDIT I finally went with the following implementation, based on Carl Woll 's answer: lds[ex_,x_]:=( (ex/.x->(x+O[x]^2))/.SeriesData[U_,Z_,L_List,Mi_,Ma_,De_]:>SeriesData[U,Z,{L[[1]]},Mi,Mi+1,De]//Quiet//Normal) The advantage is, that this one also properly works with functions whose leading term is a constant: lds[Exp[x],x] 1 Answer Update 1 Updated to eliminate SeriesData and to not return additional terms Perhaps you could use: leadingSeries[expr_, x_] := Normal[expr /. x->(x+O[x]^2) /. a_List :> Take[a, 1]] Then for your examples: leadingSeries[(1/x + 2)/(4 + 1/x^2 + x), x] leadingSeries[Exp[x], x] leadingSeries[(1/x + 2 + (1 - 1/x...
Post a Comment
Read more

mathematical optimization - Minimizing using indices, error: Part::pkspec1: The expression cannot be used as a part specification

I want to use Minimize where the variables to minimize are indices pointing into an array. Here a MWE that hopefully shows what my problem is. vars = u@# & /@ Range[3]; cons = Flatten@ { Table[(u[j] != #) & /@ vars[[j + 1 ;; -1]], {j, 1, 3 - 1}], 1 vec1 = {1, 2, 3}; vec2 = {1, 2, 3}; Minimize[{Total@((vec1[[#]] - vec2[[u[#]]])^2 & /@ Range[1, 3]), cons}, vars, Integers] The error I get: Part::pkspec1: The expression u[1] cannot be used as a part specification. >> Answer Ok, it seems that one can get around Mathematica trying to evaluate vec2[[u[1]]] too early by using the function Indexed[vec2,u[1]] . The working MWE would then look like the following: vars = u@# & /@ Range[3]; cons = Flatten@{ Table[(u[j] != #) & /@ vars[[j + 1 ;; -1]], {j, 1, 3 - 1}], 1 vec1 = {1, 2, 3}; vec2 = {1, 2, 3}; NMinimize[ {Total@((vec1[[#]] - Indexed[vec2, u[#]])^2 & /@ R...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to remap graph properties?

Graph objects support both custom properties, which do not have special meanings, and standard properties, which may be used by some functions. When importing from formats such as GraphML, we usually get a result with custom properties. What is the simplest way to remap one property to another, e.g. to remap a custom property to a standard one so it can be used with various functions? Example: Let's get Zachary's karate club network with edge weights and vertex names from here: http://nexus.igraph.org/api/dataset_info?id=1&format=html g = Import[ "http://nexus.igraph.org/api/dataset?id=1&format=GraphML", {"ZIP", "karate.GraphML"}] I can remap "name" to VertexLabels and "weights" to EdgeWeight like this: sp[prop_][g_] := SetProperty[g, prop] g2 = g // sp[EdgeWeight -> (PropertyValue[{g, #}, "weight"] & /@ EdgeList[g])] // sp[VertexLabels -> (# -> PropertyValue[{g, #}, "name"]...
Post a Comment
Read more