While some comments do point out the general opaqueness of Mathematica, the goal of Simplify is actually documented in Mathematica and something which can be ch

While some comments do point out the general opaqueness of Mathematica, the goal of Simplify is actually documented in Mathematica and something which can be changed: https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ComplexityFunction.html https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ComplexityFunctio... The default is a balance between leaf count and number of digits. But the documentation page above gives an example of how to nudge the cost function away from specialised functions.