I am currently working on a Maxima script that is supposed to calculate the definite integral from -1 to 1 of the absolute value of any given polynomial p. In my case, I've chosen p to be x^3-1/4, but it could be any other polynomial.
load("abs_integrate");
normaU(p):=integrate(abs(p),x,-1,1);
normaU(x^3-(1/4));
When I run the code, Maxima returns the integral expression integrate(abs(x^3-1/4),x,-1,1), but does not evaluate it.
What's troubling is that this issue only arises when the polynomial is of degree 3 or higher. For lower degree polynomials, the integration seems to work fine.
I couldn't find much information about the abs_integrate package and how it works, which is why I'm turning to this community for help.
Can anyone explain why this might be happening and how I could go about solving this issue? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance.