CAS Simplify: HP Prime vs. TI Nspire

[Joe Horn]

(08-14-2018 01:16 PM)JDW Wrote:  ... And yes, I am aware that a "simplified form" is not always the "shortest" form. ... But reconsider one of the two article examples, and let's use Roadrunner's suggestion of changing Radians to Degrees to make the Prime simplify the following expression that was mentioned in the article:

2*sqrt(3)*tan(85)/(sqrt(59)+16*cos(5))

The Prime simplifies is thusly:

2*sqrt(3)/(sqrt(59)*tan(5)+16*cos(5)*tan(5))

The Nspire simplifies thusly:

2*sqrt(3)/(tan(5)*(16*cos(5)+sqrt(59)))

Both are correct, but the Nspire's simplification in this one case is shorter than the Prime's, however minor that shorter simplification may be. But in this particular example, the shorter of the two simplifications is the simpler of the two.

I totally and strongly disagree with that last sentence, which essentially says that A*(B+C) is simpler than A*B+A*C. The fundamental concept in "simplification" is "perform all the indicated operations and collect like terms". Since distributing a multiplication over addition is performing an indicated operation, it's a kind of simplification. Factoring is NOT a kind of simplification, otherwise 2^3 would be the simplified form of 8.

Quote:I'm not praising the Nspire, nor do I even have one or want one. I am just pondering the article and the two simplification examples.

Understood. Please do me the favor of letting me know whenever my delight in debating gets obnoxious.