[HN Gopher] Ridiculous Math Problems
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Ridiculous Math Problems
Author : martinlaz
Score : 162 points
Date : 2020-07-05 15:10 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dam.brown.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dam.brown.edu)
| godelski wrote:
| For more ridiculous math problems I want to submit: _The Jewish
| Problems_ [0].
|
| These were used when Jewish people were trying to get into grad
| school in Russia in the '70's. Basically designed so Jewish
| people wouldn't get in.
|
| [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556
| IncRnd wrote:
| The interesting part of thost problems is that once you learn
| how to answer one, you can answer almost all of them. Of
| course, that was the issue, the answer wouldn't be accepted. It
| was a shame these problems were used in that manner.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > The interesting part of thost problems is that once you
| learn how to answer one, you can answer almost all of them.
|
| I can't see how that would be true. How would you get the
| solutions to the others by knowing how to do one of them?
| agumonkey wrote:
| Did this cause a toxin like stimulation making jewish students
| better because they tried to reach impossible goals ?
|
| It happened in music a few times.. people invented techniques
| and subgenres because they tried impossible things or had below
| useful instruments.
| hintymad wrote:
| I doubt it. Those problems are close to impossible to solve
| for ordinary students, therefore many talented but not
| necessarily genius students lost the opportunity to get good
| education. I'm a firm believer that students need to be
| pushed to stay in their discomfort zone, but Jewish Problems
| can easily push most students into panic zone.
| sukilot wrote:
| When the impossible goal is to solve a 10x hard problem in 1x
| time live during an oral exam, no. But it did have a filter
| effect, so that the Jewish students who did pass the entrance
| test were much higher ability than their average peers.
| gmantg wrote:
| These days Harward denies entry to Jews based on quotas.
| saagarjha wrote:
| These seemed like fairly decent problems to put on a
| mathematics competition...
| mike00632 wrote:
| Reminds me of the cute banana, apple, pineapple math challenge
| that is actually an elliptic curve.
|
| https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-find-the-positive-integer-s...
| murgindrag wrote:
| There's a difference between a ridiculous math programs (which
| are often amusing) and incorrect ones (for example, adding
| different units, or absolute units rather than relative ones).
|
| The article mixes the two.
|
| One type is funny and clever.
|
| The other type reinforces misconceptions and is damaging to
| students.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| A ridiculous problem I remember seeing was approximately this
| one: a/(b+c) + b/(a+c) + c/(a+b)=896. a,b,c
| positive integers
|
| I think it probably used random symbols instead of letters and
| didn't have the integer requirement. Indeed if you allow real
| numbers or 0 then it is easy to find a solution. I think it
| didn't go particularly viral because it was too hard. I think
| there's a slightly easier version if you replace 896 by 16.
| contravariant wrote:
| The version I first saw used '4' instead of '896'. Which
| frankly made the answer large enough that no reasonable amount
| of brute force could find it.
|
| A good write up can be found here: https://www.quora.com/How-
| do-you-find-the-positive-integer-s...
| IanCal wrote:
| That is _fascinating_ thank you, and a great lead into some
| more advanced topics.
| kens wrote:
| That is an amazing, detailed explanation. (Don't be fooled by
| the quora location.) Spoilers: the solution to the equation
| is 80-digit numbers, which can be obtained by using elliptic
| curves, which the link explains in detail.
| raister wrote:
| "If a ship has 26 sheep and 10 goats on board, how old is the
| ship's captain?"
|
| oh boy
| foolfoolz wrote:
| the math equivalent of a dumb programming interview question
| adrianmonk wrote:
| The similarity extends to the part where the real motivation
| for asking is to make the person asking look smart.
| arkitaip wrote:
| This reminds me of the riddle by the good soldier Svejk:
|
| -----
|
| "Would you know how to calculate the diameter of the globe?"
|
| "No, I'm afraid I wouldn't," answered Svejk, "but I'd like to ask
| you a riddle myself, gentlemen. Take a three-storied house, with
| eight windows on each floor. On the roof there are two dormer
| windows and two chimneys. On every floor there are two tenants.
| And now, tell me, gentlemen, in which year the house-porter's
| grandmother died?"
|
| -----
|
| https://english.radio.cz/good-soldier-svejk-a-literary-chara...
| gweinberg wrote:
| I'm guessing it's a trick question and she's still alive.
| [deleted]
| Quekid5 wrote:
| My personal favorite along these lines are the Busy Beaver
| numbers. It's not just huge... it's actually impossible to
| calculate (beyond very low inputs).
| saagarjha wrote:
| Impossible to _compute_ , only feasible to calculate for the
| first few.
| praptak wrote:
| My math teacher used to give us silly problems like how long will
| it take the raising water level to reach the top step of a ladder
| hanging down from a ship. It trained us not to apply formulas
| blindly.
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