Re: odd result with complex / numerical v:(-1)^(%i*%pi)^(-1)

Could you be more explicit? I will guess that you would like
*realpart(ev(v,number,float))
*to return a float?

But as far as Maxima is concerned, *%e^(.3*%pi)* is a perfectly fine
simplified expression.

One possibly and reasonable change to the simplifier would simplify
expressions of the form *<float>*<const> *to *<float>*float(<const>)*, by
float contagion.

Is that desirable? It sounds good to me, but we've seen that some users
write *0.5*%pi *for *%pi/2*, much as we try to discourage it, and would not
want that to become *1.57*.

                -s

On Wed, Apr 29, 2026 at 11:53 AM Raymond Toy <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 4/28/26 12:28 PM, Richard Fateman wrote:
>
> v:(-1)^(%i*%pi)^(-1);
>
> realpart(v);
> v,numer,float;
> realpart(%);
> %,numer;
>
> I think this is just one of the long list of quirks in how numer and float
> are treated. I remember discussions about this on the list, probably from
> Stavros and others. I don’t think we ever came to a conclusion on how this
> is supposed to work.
> &#8203;
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