Solve f(x) in terms of another variable? Or just in general.

I am trying to solve the equation

    1=.2*b*e^(-.5x)+(1-.1e^(-.5x)).5e^(-.5(1-.1e^(-.5x))(x/b))

I tried to it for a specific b value but I got an error which is odd because WolfRamAlpha managed to do it. So I must be doing something wrong. I tried

    solve('1=.2*100*e^(-.5x)+(1-.1e^(-.5x)).5e^(-.5(1-.1e^(-.5x))(x/100))')

Ideally I'd like to solve it for x in terms of b so that I can then evaluate the x value for a range of b's.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to do this?

Answer 1

[Mahdi]

First of all, unless you define e as a number, MATLAB doesn't recognize it as the number e. To use the number e (2.71..), you should use exp().

Second of all, look at the examples for solve to see how it is used. You need to define x as a symbol. From there, it should be easy to figure out.

[Walter Roberson]

Also, you need to include multiplication explicitly, such as 0.5*x instead of 0.5x; likewise between the "5x)" and the "(x/b)"