My Quibbles

The Inverse Symbolic Calculator and Plouffe's Inverter are great resources, but they failed to satisfy me, primarily for the following reasons:

(Note: Plouffe's Inverter has partly addressed the progressive complexity issue by sorting its output, but it continues to only report matches that agree in the digits given by the user. Also, it scores its matches purely by string length when rendered into ASCII, so for example "Riemannzero1" gets the same score as "PisotV*Feig2" and "820421/78823" regardless of which is most exceptional.)

Plouffe or ISC	ries
Presents all answers in numerical sequence and without regard for the complexity of the description of each number.	Gives answers in order of increasing complexity and increasing closeness to your number — just like continued fractions.
Isn't useful for people who only know a number to within 6 or 7 digits, but know that it probably has a simple formula — because there are just so many long,complex formulas to wade through.	Immediately gives you the simplest formulas or equations for any number regardless of the number of digits in your number. It also gives matches that are equal to your value in the first 6 or 7 digits, but you're free to just ignore those matches.
Thinks decimal points don't matter — search for 2.5061841 and it gives ln(26263/20441) = 0.25061841... as an answer! Why?!?!?	Doesn't consider "a factor of 10" to be any more important than "a factor of 9" or "a factor of 11" (well, actually, a little less important than a factor of 9 and a little more important than a factor of 11).
Doesn't know that 2.506184145588... is the solution of x^x = 10. (All solutions are in the form K = expression)	Reports this as the 4^th solution for any value within +- 0.00044 of 2.506184.
Database is cluttered with stuff like log(26263/20441) and cos(Pi23/56) / cos(Pi15/34).	Reports log(26263/20441) only if your number is closer to that value than to the value of any simpler expression.
Gives answers like -1+x^5+x^6-x^7-x^8+x^9+x^11+x^12 without defining what x is. Also gives many answers that can't be checked unless you own a copy of Mathematica or Maple.	All solutions are self-explanatory. Lesser-known symbols like phi are defined by a tagline in the output the first time they are used.
Doesn't let you specify "please ignore these weird functions".	Lets you specify any combination of functions, operators, and small integers to be used in a search.
Requires Internet connection; puts load on someone else's computer.	Runs on your computer, but fast enough to try billions of possible solutions in less than a minute.

Okay, enough complaining. Back to ries main page

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