Question

Is there a library to work with polynomial arithmetic when polynomials can have negative exponents? I found the poly1d class in numpy, but I cannot figure out how I could represent a polynomial like x**-3 + x**-2 + x**2 + x**3.

Answer 1

To quote Wikipedia:

In mathematics, a polynomial is an expression of finite length constructed from variables (also called indeterminates) and constants, using only the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and non-negative integer exponents.

What you’re asking about isn’t a polynomial — for example polynomials are always finite, but what you want has a singularity at 0. On the positive side, there are libraries for symbolic manipulation. Take a look at sympy.