Yes, I included your earlier comment to that effect. Apologies if my interjection "No" was confusing; it was a *positive* "No". --Dan << << Yes but my first line should read: Let the cube root of a+bi be y^(1/3) + x^(1/3) i. (or else swap x,y in the two cubics). On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 9:38 PM, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:

No, that's perfect, since the equations for x and y can be solved by the solution to the general cubic . . . and will *hopefully* give real answers -- leading to expressions for the real and imaginary parts of (a + bi)^(1/3) in terms of radicals, which is what I was looking for.

--Dan

James wrote:

<< Oops, I seem to have x and y reversed below. . . .

...

_____________________________________________________________________ "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi." --Peter Schickele