% Illustrate difficult of symbolic integration % Use Maple to symbolically integrate % f(x) = 1 / (x^5 - (x^4 + x^3 + x^2 + x)/16 - 1/2) % from x=-1 to x=1 disp('result of symbolic integration of ') disp('1 / (x^5 - (x^4 + x^3 + x^2 + x)/16 - 1/2)') disp('from x=1 to x=-1.') disp('Correct answer is that the integral does not exist.') syms x int(1/(x^5 - (x^4 + x^3 + x^2 + x)/16 - 1/2), -1, 1) xnum = (-1:.002:1); ynum = xnum.^5 - (xnum.^4 + xnum.^3 + xnum.^2 + xnum)/16 - 1/2; figure(1), hold off, clf, subplot(211) plot(xnum,ynum), grid title('Plot of x^5 - (x^4 + x^3 + x^2 + x)/16 - 1/2') subplot(212) plot(xnum,1./ynum),axis([-1 1 -20 20]),grid title('Plot of Integrand 1/ ( x^5 - (x^4 + x^3 + x^2 + x)/16 - 1/2 )')