Sorry for this vague question. Here is my circumstance: I have tried to formulate a problem with an equation, and it is a optimization problem.
So I just go ahead, and use mathematica to take the derivative of that equation, set it to zero, and solve in terms a variable of interest. The problem I ran into is that it takes 2 min for mathematica to solve it, and the solution (it was an expression) contains 60 lines long.
Obviously, 60 lines long (approx. 1000 mathmatical symbol) will definely not something that can go into a research paper, if the result is to be published.
So I go back to my original problem and tried to see where I can simplify. After some simplification, I repeat and I still got the same result (slightly better actually).
What are the general steps for me to do? What should I do next? Should I approximate the equation or should I approximate the solution? Or should I just stick with the numerical solution?