[Maxima] function which takes functions as arguments

[Stavros Macrakis]

On 10/3/07, Uğur Güney <ugurguney at gmail.com> wrote:
> # I want to study coordinate transformations using Maxima. What I want is to
> have a function, find_jacobian(), which takes tree functions as arguments
> and returns a matrix.

As a general rule, Maxima is set up to work more conveniently with
*expressions* than with functions.  So I would recommend that you
write, e.g.

     ax : r*sin(th)*cos(ph);

that is, setting ax to an *expression* instead of defining x() as a function.
etc.

Then writing the Jacobian is trivial:

    jacobian_matrix(exprs,vars) :=
       genmatrix(lambda([i,j],diff(exprs[i],vars[j]),length(exprs),length(vars));

     jacobian_matrix( [ax,ay,az], [r, th, ph] ) =>

 matrix([cos(ph)*sin(th), cos(ph)*r*cos(th), -sin(ph)*r*sin(th)],
           [sin(ph)*sin(th),  sin(ph)*r*cos(th),  cos(ph)*r*sin(th)],
           [cos(th),            -r*sin(th),             0                     ])

        -s