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From: Kevin J. McCann on 10 Mar 2010 01:44
S1 = Exp[k1 x + I \[Omega] (t + \[Tau])]

If k1, omega, t, and tau are real, then you can do the following:

S1 /. Complex[x_, y_] -> Complex[x, -y]

You can even make this nicer:


\!\(\*SuperscriptBox["x_", "*"]\) :=
x /. Complex[a_, b_] -> Complex[a, -b]

Then

\!\(\*SuperscriptBox["S1", "*"]\)

Gives this result:

E^(k1 x - I (t + \[Tau]) \[Omega])

You have to drop each of these into a notebook to see them.

Kevin


Joseph Gwinn wrote:
> I have been using Mathematica 7 to do the grunt work in solving some
> transmission-line problems, using the exponential form of the equations.
>
> A typical form would be S1 = Exp[k1*x + I*omega*(t+tau)], describing signal one,
> where K1 is the attenuation in nepers per meter, I is the square root of minus
> one, omega is the angular frequency in radians per second, t is time and tau is
> a fixed time delay, t and tau being in seconds.
>
> Often I need the complex conjugate of S1, so I write Conjugate[S1]. The problem
> is that Mathematica does nothing useful, leaving the explicit Conjugate[] in the
> output expression, which after a very few steps generates a mathematically
> correct but incomprehensible algebraic hairball.
>
> Clearly Mathematica feels that it lack sufficient information to proceed. In
> particular, it has no way to know that all variables are real until explicitly
> told.
>
> One way to solve this problem is
> FullSimplify[Conjugate[S1],Element[_Symbol,Reals]], and this often works.
>
> But equally often, it works too well, yielding the trignometric expansion of the
> desired exponential-form answer. Nor is it clear why it sometimes works and
> sometimes works too well.
>
> Using Simplify[] instead of FullSimplify[] doesn't seem to work at all.
>
>
> So my questions are:
>
> 1. What controls FullSimplify[]'s behaviour here?
>
> 2. What other ways are there to cause Mathematica to apply the Conjugate[]
> without holding back?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Joe Gwinn
>

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