Roots of unity

[Bob McElrath]

Hans Peter Würmli [wurmli at freesurf.ch] wrote:
> 
> 
> Why don't you define a simple function like:
> 
>  numeric qrt(numeric n){
>     if (n>=0) return pow(n,numeric(1)/numeric(3)); 
>     else return -pow(-n,numeric(1)/numeric(3)); 
>  }
> 
> and use that in your particular problem.

Because it's the symbolic expression I'm interested in, and I can't test if
n >= 0.

I suppose I could make a:
    class nthroot : public function  {
        public:
            nthroot(numeric n, ex arg);
    // ...
and override the evalf function for it (I'm not sure how to do this).  But I
was hoping this could be incorporated into pow() since the problem crops up for
any pow() with a fractional exponent.

Cheers,
-- Bob

Bob McElrath (rsmcelrath at students.wisc.edu) 
Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison, Department of Physics
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