maxima-bounces at math.utexas.edu wrote on 02/29/2008 07:47:32 AM:
> Simplification is a large.and difficult area....
>
> -s
Students (still) want to match the back of the book; the rest of us
have our own ideas about presentation--we might want expressions to
look as if we had used carbon-based computing (pencil + brain).
Even ignoring personal preferences, simplification is a difficult
problem. Consider:
sin(%pi / 60) = ((sqrt(5) - 1) * (sqrt(6) + sqrt(2))/16) -
((sqrt(sqrt(5) + 5) * (sqrt(6) - sqrt(2)))/(8 * sqrt(2)))
The right side might be amusing, but surely the left side is the
simplest. Converting sin(%pi / 60) --> ugly algebraic is easy, but
ugly algebraic --> sin(%pi/60) isn't so easy.
Barton