How to simply rearrange a symbolic equation to get an expression for one variable in terms of others

136 views (last 30 days)
I'm building differential equations symbolically and ran into an error when doing a simple re-arranging of an equation.
For example, I am able to rearrange an equation with a symbolic variable x:
syms x a
eqn1 = x == a + x/2;
% Re-arrange to get an expression for x
solve(eqn1, x)
ans =
2*a
But when x(t) is time-varying, solve does something else:
syms x(t) a
eqn1 = x(t) == a + x(t)/2;
% Re-arrange to get an expression for x(t)
solve(eqn1, x(t))
Warning: Unable to find explicit solution. For options, see help.
> In sym/solve (line 317)
ans =
struct with fields:
a: [0×1 sym]
t: [0×1 sym]
I'm not sure what it's trying to do. All I want is to re-arrange the expression!

Accepted Answer

Paul
Paul on 29 Jan 2023
Not sure about solve, but isolate seems to work
syms x(t) a
eqn1 = x(t) == a + x(t)/2;
isolate(eqn1,x(t))
ans = 
  2 Comments
Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 29 Jan 2023
This is probably the easiest route.
solve() is not able to solve for anything other than variables, so the approach with solve() would have to be to subs() a variable for the function, solve for the variable, and then if needed subs() back.

Sign in to comment.

More Answers (0)

Products


Release

R2021b

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!