[seqfan] Re: Searching for 'factori[sz]e' (was: Re: seqfan at list.seqfan.eu)

[Joshua Zucker]

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 2:41 PM,  <hv at crypt.org> wrote:
> hv at crypt.org wrote:
> :A search for 'factorise' yields 9 results; a search for 'factorize' yields
> :25 (different) results.

...

> I was looking for A001055 (because of it's recent mention on-list), and
> eventually I gave up searching by words and just calculated the first dozen
> values.
>
> Maybe the search variant problem can't be solved by OEIS - I accept it is
> a Hard Problem - but I think standard spellings would at least ameliorate
> it a little.

But Google has already done a lot toward solving this.

Searching for
  site:research.att.com/~njas ways factor
comes up with A001055 on the second page.

If you compute a few consecutive "interesting" terms, then you can search for
  site:research.att.com/~njas ways factor "4 11 2"
and get your sequence first.  (Oddly, searching with things like 1 2 1
in there seems to make matters worse instead of better.)

Google knows that factor/factors/factorize/etc should all be given
some weight when you search for factor.

In fact I do a lot of my OEIS searches using Google if I'm not happy
with what I find from the search on the main OEIS page.

--Joshua Zucker