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In a German forum, a user asked how the "Feynman"-trick works. The example was $$ f(x)=x e^{x} $$ Another user mentioned that the Risch algorithm should be taught. Therefore, I wonder whether the Risch algorithm is useful for calculating antiderivates by hand. My questions:

  1. Would the Risch algorithm be useful to find antiderivatives of, for example, $x e^{x}$ by hand? If so, how?
  2. How can Wolfram Alpha and Mathematica solves (almost) every integral you give to them? What's the method they use?
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  • No. The antiderivative of $xe^x$ is fairly easy to guess given practice or just trial and error. Risch’s algorithm is (afaik) a hundred pages long in description and a general pain to implement – I would be highly surprised if it didn’t involve concepts too complex to explain to someone who can’t compute that kind of antiderivative.
  • – Aphelli Dec 09 '21 at 20:32
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    You can find a description of how Mathematica computes integrals here: https://library.wolfram.com/infocenter/Conferences/5832/DefiniteIntegration.pdf . The Risch "algorithm" is a bit of a misnomer: the final step, checking algebraic equivalence between the derivatives of candidate answers and the original problem is undecidable, and in fact, symbolic integration is equivalent to the halting problem. – TomKern Dec 09 '21 at 20:52