The attached file demo.nb: Defines two Bezier curves cur1 and cur2. It graphs them, and then tries to use NMaximize to find the distance between them. As the results show (1) Plot first evaluates the plotted function with the symbolic argument “t”, even though the documentation of plot says "…

I couldn’t see any file attached, so I’ll comment on NMaximize evaluation in general. Where necessary, for many numerical functions in Mathematica, there is a statement in the documentation, for example “FindMinimum has attribute HoldAll … FindMinimum first localizes the values of all variables, th…

When you define a numerical function that can’t be evaluated symbolically, you should define in the form f[ x_?NumberQ] := … Many of Mathematica’s numerical algorithms do some symbolic evaluation to improve their performance. _?NumberQ prevents that from happening. [image] NumberQ—Wolfr…

I encountered this problem when (greatly simplified) FindMinimum[…f[y]…,…] called f, a function defined f[y_]:=...h[b]\,FindMinimum[g[b,y],{b,0}][[2]] (\\argmin replacement).... The solution was, as stated above to put a numerical guard, f[y_?NumberQ]:=… But don’t forget to Clear[f] or restart t…

Mathematica evaluates numerical functions symbolically. How can I stop it?

Questions

brucem (Bruce Miller) February 23, 2014, 10:22pm 4

Expanded version of Mathematica tries to evaluate numerical functions symbolically. .

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Mathematica evaluates numerical functions symbolically. How can I stop it?

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