Automatically Discovering Euler's Identity via Genetic Programming
Konstantine Arkoudas · 2008
We show that by using machine learning techniques (ge-netic programming, in particular), Euler’s famous identity (V −E+F = 2) can be automatically discovered from a lim-ited amount of data indicating the values of V, E, and F for a small number of polyhedra—the five platonic solids. This result suggests that mechanized inductive techniques have an important role to play in the process of doing creative math-ematics, and that large amounts of data are not necessary for the extraction of important regularities. Genetic program-ming was implemented from scratch in SML-NJ.