Inverse Symbolic Calculator
Encyclopedia
The Inverse Symbolic Calculator is an online number checker established July 18, 1995 by Peter Benjamin Borwein, Jonathan Michael Borwein and Simon Plouffe
of the Canadian Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics (Burnaby, Canada). A user will input a number and the Calculator will use an algorithm to search for and calculate closed-form expression
s or suitable functions that have roots near this number. Hence, the calculator is of great importance for those working in numerical areas of experimental mathematics
.
The ISC contains 54 million mathematical constants. Plouffe's Inverter (opened in 1998) contains 214 million. A newer version of the tables with 3.702 billion entries (as of June 19, 2010) exist.
Simon Plouffe
Simon Plouffe is a Quebec mathematician born on June 11, 1956 in Saint-Jovite, Quebec. He discovered the formula for the BBP algorithm which permits the computation of the nth binary digit of π, in 1995...
of the Canadian Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics (Burnaby, Canada). A user will input a number and the Calculator will use an algorithm to search for and calculate closed-form expression
Closed-form expression
In mathematics, an expression is said to be a closed-form expression if it can be expressed analytically in terms of a bounded number of certain "well-known" functions...
s or suitable functions that have roots near this number. Hence, the calculator is of great importance for those working in numerical areas of experimental mathematics
Experimental mathematics
Experimental mathematics is an approach to mathematics in which numerical computation is used to investigate mathematical objects and identify properties and patterns...
.
The ISC contains 54 million mathematical constants. Plouffe's Inverter (opened in 1998) contains 214 million. A newer version of the tables with 3.702 billion entries (as of June 19, 2010) exist.
Literature
- John ConwayJohn Horton ConwayJohn Horton Conway is a prolific mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory...
, Richard K. GuyRichard K. GuyRichard Kenneth Guy is a British mathematician, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Calgary....
: Zahlenzauber (The Book of Numbers), End of Chapter 1 about Numbers in languages. Birkhäuser, 1997, ISBN 3-7643-5244-2.