Practical 7: Symbolic Toolbox

Practical 7

Solving Equations

The Symbolic Toolbox can be used to find solutions for single or simultaneous equations using the solve command.

Solving a Single Equation

The first task is to solve a single equation $f \left(x\right)=0$ for the variable $x$ , with the result stored in the variable a. This can be done with command solve.

a = solve(f,x)

> Exercise: Using solve for a Single Equation > Go through and type in the code for the following steps to solve the single equation. $\frac{10}{x^{3}+1} =4-2x$ > Watch out! There is an error that you will need to correct!!
1. Decide what $f \left(x\right)$ is (you will need to rearrange the equation)	In this case $f(x)= \frac{10}{x^{3}+1} -4+2x$
2. Create a symbolic variable $x$	syms x
3. Create a symbolic variable $f$ by assigning a symbolic expression to it	f=10/(x^3+1)-4+2x
4. Solve $f \left(x\right)=0$	u = solve(f,x)