Ames Laboratory, Department of Energy, ISU, Ames, Iowa

Use of Constants

Shortcuts for several expressions involve clever use of numerical constants. For example, the expression abc - ab - ac - bc + a + b + c is equivalent to (a - 1)(b - 1)(c - 1) +1, requiring only two multiplications and four adds. a⁴ - 8a³ + 24a² - 32a + 16 can be computed as (a - 2)⁴ using only two multiplications and one add. Such clever methods involving the use of constants can not be found by the Search program.