Sequences needing more terms: high-value targets?

Jon Schoenfield jonscho at hiwaay.net
Tue May 15 01:05:07 CEST 2007


All,

My apologies if this has been addressed here recently (I'm a SEQFAN newbie), 
or if it's addressed somewhere at the OEIS web site and I haven't found it 
yet ...

Of the 5900+ sequences with keyword:more, some seem to be more broadly 
important than others ... e.g., some seem more likely to be a sequence that 
someone might encounter while doing serious research, and might consult the 
OEIS in the hope of identifying it.  Other sequences seem to be more just a 
matter of curiosity (like something I might come up with if had other things 
I should be doing, but really wanted to play with numbers instead <g>).  I'm 
running a program now to extend A054214 a little, but I doubt that any 
additional terms I provide will really make any difference to anybody's 
research.  :-)

Is there some convenient way to gauge the general level of interest in a 
given sequence with keyword:more?  One could Google the name of a sequence 
and count the hits ....  More specifically (since some sequences may already 
show plenty of terms for most OEIS users, but not quite enough to fill three 
lines), is there some good way to gauge the general level of interest in 
extending a particular sequence?  I'm basically looking for ideas as to how 
to identify "high-value targets," as it were, among sequences with 
keyword:more.

A related question:  the definitions of keywords "hard" and "more" at the 
OEIS web site both ask, "Would someone please extend this sequence?" ... but 
is there a conflict between them?  There are currently 1000 sequences with 
both:

    hard: Next term is not known and may be hard to find.
    more: More terms are needed and should not be difficult to find.

Best wishes,

-- Jon Schoenfield







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