FullSimplify behavior
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg41710] FullSimplify behavior
- From: carlos at colorado.edu (Carlos Felippa)
- Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 04:35:19 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
I would like to get an understanding for the behavior of FullSimplify in the last two commands. Print[FullSimplify[Sin[Pi/4]]//InputForm]; Print[FullSimplify[Sin[Pi/3]]//InputForm]; Print[FullSimplify[Sin[Pi/8]]//InputForm]; Print[FullSimplify[TrigToExp[Sin[Pi/8]]]//InputForm]; 1/Sqrt[2] Sqrt[3]/2 Sin[Pi/8] Sqrt[2 - Sqrt[2]]/2 It is because FullSimplify views Sin[Pi/8] as "simpler" than Sqrt[2 - Sqrt[2]]/2 in terms of leaf count? It seems that way since the counts given are 6 and 17, respectively. And the count of TrigToExp[Sin[Pi/8]] is 31. Counterargument(?). For the first two commands the leaf counts before and after FullSimplify are the same: 5 -> 5, and 10 -> 10, respectively, yet the transformation was done.