Order of returned sequences?
Gordon Royle
gordon at csse.uwa.edu.au
Fri May 28 09:54:15 CEST 2004
How is the list of returned sequences determined if there are lots of
matches?
For example, I wanted to find the sequence of (integer) partitions of a
number, so I typed in the first few values
1,2,3,5,7,11,15,22
and got a whole stack of "subsidiary" series that happen to coincide
with the partition numbers for small values of n (eg partitions into at
most 8 parts, partitions into at most 9 parts etc) - but I did not get
the parititon numbers.
If, on the other hand, I entered
1,2,3,5,7,11,15,22,30
then I got the "master sequence" A000041, which is the partition
numbers.
But why wasn't it picked up the first time?
Should it not be the case that more important sequences get returned
*before* inferior sequences? Particularly when one of them is
historically one of the most important sequences in the last few
hundred years and the others are direct derivations from that sequence
obtained by imposing an arbitrary restriction that surely appears
infrequently if at all in actual problems - after all, what proportion
of "partition" problems involve partitions into at most 8 parts?
Or even just return them in A-number order!
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