The workaround you show does not need the UnitsOf(e) part. It works simply because of the inline evaluation, which redefines e as a simple float number. It looks like e is defined in the symbolics as a function e(x) and this fact should not show through, thats the essence of bug, I guess.
This would explain to some extent the error message I get - Mathcad seems to think that I am trying to evaluate e(x)(x) which equals e(x,x) but "function" e only accepts just 1 argument, not 2.
Not sure about that explanation, though.
The bug (yes it's a severe bug!), already occurs in the second line/expression.
The derivative of x*e to x is NOT e(x), but simply e.
Mathcad11/Maple translates that to exp(1), which is correct to some extent. It's bad in the sense that you cannot have a symbolic variable called e, that means something else than exp(1), but I can live with it. According to ISO 80000, variables should be written in italics, well known mathematics constants and functions should be written in roman (upright) style. Then a variable called e could be anything , but e=exp(1).
Is there any difference when defining f(x):=e*x
And I wonder how Prime fares...it is capable of telling the difference between a variable e and the constant e=exp(1).
Success!
Luc
Is there any difference when defining f(x):=e*x
And I wonder how Prime fares...it is capable of telling the difference between a variable e and the constant e=exp(1).
No, the order of the multiplication does not matter.
As I don't care about Prime I did not bother starting up the moloch, but as it seems to be a symbolic bug and Prime uses the same old muPad I guess that there would be not much difference.
Here is another strange effect I noticed while playing around:
but if I use "substitute 2.7182182...=e" , which makes the whole thing a bit redundant, I get the correct symbolic result:
