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I'm Having a problem maximizing this function in mathematica:

Maximize[a + 0.3 * b, 0 < b < 10, a]

I just get the above back again as output when I run the code, Not helpfull

However when I maximize the equivalent function:

Maximize[a + (3/10) * b, 0 < b < 10, a]

I get a solution?!?

What is going on here? why does mathematica do this?

James Peach
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1 Answers1

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If you compare these results you see that the first one switches to use NMaximize due to 0.3 being Real, whereas the second attempts to solve symbolically using Maximise due to 3/10 being Rational. This accounts for the different behaviour.

enter image description here

Map[Head, {0.3, 3/10}]

{Real, Rational}

Chris Degnen
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    This seams to explain the issue, but why does mathematica not try to do this on its own is beyond me. And the lack of debugging output is worrying – James Peach Mar 11 '16 at 09:35