calc: Solving Equations

 
 11.6 Solving Equations
 ======================
 
 The ‘a S’ (‘calc-solve-for’) [‘solve’] command rearranges an equation to
 solve for a specific variable.  An equation is an expression of the form
 ‘L = R’.  For example, the command ‘a S x’ will rearrange ‘y = 3x + 6’
 to the form, ‘x = y/3 - 2’.  If the input is not an equation, it is
 treated like an equation of the form ‘X = 0’.
 
    This command also works for inequalities, as in ‘y < 3x + 6’.  Some
 inequalities cannot be solved where the analogous equation could be; for
 example, solving ‘a < b c’ for ‘b’ is impossible without knowing the
 sign of ‘c’.  In this case, ‘a S’ will produce the result ‘b != a/c’
 (using the not-equal-to operator) to signify that the direction of the
 inequality is now unknown.  The inequality ‘a <= b c’ is not even
 partially solved.  SeeDeclarations, for a way to tell Calc that the
 signs of the variables in a formula are in fact known.
 
    Two useful commands for working with the result of ‘a S’ are ‘a .’
 (SeeLogical Operations), which converts ‘x = y/3 - 2’ to ‘y/3 - 2’,
 and ‘s l’ (SeeLet Command) which evaluates another formula with ‘x’
 set equal to ‘y/3 - 2’.
 

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