[seqfan] Re: Linear recurrences with large gaps

Douglas McNeil mcneil at hku.hk
Wed Jan 12 10:53:34 CET 2011


On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Joerg Arndt <arndt at jjj.de> wrote:
> Hints about how you compute (that many terms of) A184257
> would be of interest for the computationalist btw.

+2.

One thing I think would be incredibly useful is if we got in the habit
of briefly explaining our methods if we can't include a code to show
it explicitly.  If a sequence can be easily computed using the
standard tricks (brute force, sieves, etc.), then that's fine, but
there are many sequences where I haven't the foggiest idea how a bound
or term was found and it seems completely magical.  In some cases even
a few words would make all the difference.  I'm as bad about this as
anyone although I've been trying to improve (e.g.
http://oeis.org/A177875).

This would not only be good for teaching purposes but could serve as
another sanity check, if someone can look at an argument and say
"Wait, that doesn't work.."


Doug

-- 
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Hong Kong



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