This is the file EIGEN USAGE DSK:SHARE; . The EIGEN package is described in this file. The source code is in the file EIGEN > DSK:SHARE; and the fastload file is EIGEN FASL DSK;SHARE; . (You can load this one using MACSYMA's LOADFILE command, i.e. LOADFILE(EIGEN,FASL,DSK,SHARE); . If you access the FASL file via the functions EIGENVALUES or EIGENVECTORS, the FASL file will autoload.) The DEMO file is EIGEN DEMO DSK:SHARE; . You can BATCH or DEMO this file, i.e. BATCH(EIGEN,DEMO,DSK,SHARE); or DEMO(EIGEN,DEMO,DSK,SHARE); . Note that in the DEMO mode you should hit the space key at each step... The new EIGEN package is written by Yekta G"ursel (YEKTA@MIT-MC) and is faster and more memory efficient than the old EIGEN package. It also is able to handle multiple eigenvalues and the eigenvectors corresponding to those eigenvalues. It will work with any square matrix ( not necessarily symmetric or hermitian ) and will tell whether the matrix is diagonalizable. The calculated eigenvectors and the unit eigenvectors of the matrix are the RIGHT eigenvectors and the RIGHT unit eigenvectors respectively. ( You should be aware of the fact that this program uses the MACSYMA functions SOLVE and ALGSYS and if SOLVE can not find the roots of the characteristic polynomial of the matrix or if it generates a rather messy solution the EIGEN package may not produce any useful results. More info on this will be given in the description of the commands... This package is DESIGNED to try to get the EXACT solutions to the eigenvalue and eigenvector problems. If the matrices you have contain FLOATING point numbers, it may not be able to solve your problem. You should use the IMSL eigenvalue and eigenvector package for numerical matrices with floating point numbers. These excellent routines will find the APPROXIMATE solutions for numerical matrices with floating point numbers. See MACSYMA Manual Version 10, Volume 2, Page V2-4-78.) Description of the functions : CONJUGATE(X) returns the complex conjugate of its argument. ( Note that %I's in the expressions should be explicit, since there is no complex variable declaration in MACSYMA at the present time. This is true for all the functions in this package...) INNERPRODUCT(X,Y) takes two LISTS of equal length as its arguments and returns their inner ( scalar ) product defined by (Complex Conjugate of X).Y ( The "dot" operation is the same as the usual one defined for vectors. ) . UNITVECTOR(X) takes a LIST as its argument and returns a unit list. ( i.e. a list with unit magnitude. ) COLUMNVECTOR(X) takes a LIST as its argument and returns a column vector the components of which are the elements of the list. The first element is the first component,...etc...( This is useful if you want to use parts of the outputs of the functions in this package in matrix calculations. ..) GRAMSCHMIDT(X) takes a LIST of lists the sublists of which are of equal length and not necessarily orthogonal ( with respect to the innerproduct defined above ) as its argument and returns a similar list each sublist of which is orthogonal to all others. ( Returned results may contain integers that are factored. This is due to the fact that the MACSYMA function FACTOR is used to simplify each substage of the Gram-Schmidt algorithm. This prevents the expressions from getting very messy and helps to reduce the sizes of the numbers that are produced along the way. ) EIGENVALUES(MAT) takes a MATRIX as its argument and returns a list of lists the first sublist of which is the list of eigenvalues of the matrix and the other sublist of which is the list of the multiplicities of the eigenvalues in the corresponding order. { The MACSYMA function SOLVE is used here to find the roots of the characteristic polynomial of the matrix. Sometimes SOLVE may not be able to find the roots of the polynomial;in that case nothing in this package except CONJUGATE, INNERPRODUCT, UNITVECTOR, COLUMNVECTOR and GRAMSCHMIDT will work unless you know the eigenvalues. In some cases SOLVE may generate very messy eigenvalues. You may want to simplify the answers yourself before you go on. There are provisions for this and they will be explained below. ( This usually happens when SOLVE returns a not-so-obviously real expression for an eigenvalue which is supposed to be real...)} EIGENVECTORS(MAT) takes a MATRIX as its argument and returns a list of lists the first sublist of which is the output of the EIGENVALUES command and the other sublists of which are the eigenvectors of the matrix corresponding to those eigenvalues respectively. The flags that affect this function are : NONDIAGONALIZABLE[FALSE] will be set to TRUE or FALSE depending on whether the matrix is nondiagonalizable or diagonalizable after an EIGENVECTORS command is executed. HERMITIANMATRIX[FALSE] If set to TRUE will cause the degenerate eigenvectors of the hermitian matrix to be orthogonalized using the Gram-Schmidt algorithm. KNOWNEIGVALS[FALSE] If set to TRUE the EIGEN package will assume the eigenvalues of the matrix are known to the user and stored under the global name LISTEIGVALS. LISTEIGVALS should be set to a list similar to the output of the EIGENVALUES command. ( The MACSYMA function ALGSYS is used here to solve for the eigenvectors. Sometimes if the eigenvalues are messy, ALGSYS may not be able to produce a solution. In that case you are advised to try to simplify the eigenvalues by first finding them using EIGENVALUES command and then using whatever marvelous tricks you might have to reduce them to something simpler. You can then use the KNOWNEIGVALS flag to proceed further. ) UNITEIGENVECTORS(MAT) takes a MATRIX as its argument and returns a list of lists the first sublist of which is the output of the EIGENVALUES command and the other sublists of which are the unit eigenvectors of the matrix corresponding to those eigenvalues respectively. The flags mentioned in the description of the EIGENVECTORS command have the same effects in this one as well. In addition there is one more flag which may be useful : KNOWNEIGVECTS[FALSE] If set to TRUE the EIGEN package will assume that the eigenvectors of the matrix are known to the user and are stored under the global name LISTEIGVECTS. LISTEIGVECTS should be set to a list similar to the output of the EIGENVECTORS command. ( If KNOWNEIGVECTS is set to TRUE and the list of eigenvectors is given the setting of the flag NONDIAGONALIZABLE may not be correct. If that is the case please set it to the correct value. The author assumes that the user knows what he is doing and will not try to diagonalize a matrix the eigenvectors of which do not span the vector space of the appropriate dimension...) SIMILARITYTRANSFORM(MAT) takes a MATRIX as its argument and returns a list which is the output of the UNITEIGENVECTORS command. In addition if the flag NONDIAGONALIZABLE is FALSE two global matrices LEFTMATRIX and RIGHTMATRIX will be generated. These matrices have the property that LEFTMATRIX.MAT.RIGHTMATRIX is a diagonal matrix with the eigenvalues of MAT on the diagonal. If NONDIAGONALIZABLE is TRUE these two matrices will not be generated. If the flag HERMITIANMATRIX is TRUE then LEFTMATRIX is the complex conjugate of the transpose of RIGHTMATRIX. Otherwise LEFTMATRIX is the inverse of RIGHTMATRIX. RIGHTMATRIX is the matrix the columns of which are the unit eigenvectors of MAT. The other flags have the same effects since SIMILARITYTRANSFORM calls the other functions in the package in order to be able to form RIGHTMATRIX... Finally, for some of you who may think that the names of the functions are too long, I also made shorter names...( In the following list " := " means "is equivalent to" ...). Note that using these may make your code pretty unreadable, you'll save 50% in typing though. CONJ(X):= CONJUGATE(X) INPROD(X,Y):= INNERPRODUCT(X,Y) UVECT(X):= UNITVECTOR(X) COVECT(X):= COLUMNVECTOR(X) GSCHMIT(X):= GRAMSCHMIDT(X) EIVALS(MAT):= EIGENVALUES(MAT) EIVECTS(MAT):= EIGENVECTORS(MAT) UEIVECTS(MAT):= UNITEIGENVECTORS(MAT) SIMTRAN(MAT):= SIMILARITYTRANSFORM(MAT) Well, I guess this is the end... Have fun with the EIGEN package. I hope it will give you useful results. If you run into a bug please let me know... ( I do not think there is any, but nevertheless... )