[seqfan] Re: Superseeker question + two interesting patterns

[franktaw at netscape.net]

Not so fast! For many of the OEIS users, the suggestion that a sequence 
satisfies, say, a lgdegf recurrence is not a moment of enlightenment. 
As with this case, many, perhaps most users have to spend several hours 
trying to figure out what this means. This is fine if there is some 
reasonable chance of an actual fit; but it seems to me that at least 
those tests done by Superseeker that wind up doing a polynomial fit to 
data should be so constrained.

Franklin T. Adams-Watters

-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Sloane <njasloane at gmail.com>

Well, if one has enough terms, than that is certainly something
one can do oneself. Just feed it N-1 terms and check
its prediction against the N-th yourself. But since the gfun section is
only one of many things that Superseeker tries, I don't want to
incorporate your suggestion into the program as a whole.

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 3:57 PM, <franktaw at netscape.net> wrote:

> How difficult would it be to require Superseeker to fit the first N-1
> points, and only report an answer if the N-th is correctly predicted?
>
> Franklin T. Adams-Watters
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil Sloane <njasloane at gmail.com>
>
> No, this is an example where Superseeker's reply is useless,
> I'm afraid. (But there are many many examples where
> Superseeker does discover something useful. I use
> it all the time.)