Ans and ^ (1/3)

[John Colvin]

(04-10-2015 06:05 PM)toml_12953 Wrote:  

(03-30-2015 06:15 PM)John Colvin Wrote:  if I place -8^(1/3) on the stack I get -2 after pressing eval.

If you eval -8^(1/3) you get -(8^(1/3)) which is -2 of course.

If you want to raise -8 to the 1/3 power, you need to eval:

'(-8)^(1/3)'

to get

1+1.73205080757*i

Make sure "Allow complex output from real input" is checked in settings.

Tom L

I got that. I now understand that the Prime's nth root function and nth root template return the real root where as the y^x key returns the principle complex root. I was curious as to why (-8)^(1/3) returns the complex root as opposed to the real root(even in CAS mode), It's not a bug in the software, since this is the way it is handled on the 50G and in XCAS(1 + i*sqrt(3)).