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'Just Sleep On It' Solves Tricky Problems?
An anonymous reader writes "CBC news reports that the effectiveness of 'sleeping on it' when faced with a difficult task may have more than just anecdotal roots. 66 students were trained to perform a calculation on an eight digit number using two simple rules which would take seven steps to complete. A different method existed to perform the same calculation 'almost instantly', but was not shown to the students. After eight hours, where half the students were allowed to sleep and the other half remained awake, 60% of the rested and 22% of the wakeful students discovered the more efficient method."
I remember reading somewhere that Einstein would sleep for 14 hours or more at a time. And Margret Thatcher could get by on just a couple of hours.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3418017.stm
RTFA. They also tested a group that had slept, but not been exposed to the problem, and none of them solved it. Thinking about it before sleeping gave the best result.
Comparing two population proportions:
n1=n2=30
p1 = 0.6
p2 = 0.22
Null Hypothesis: Population proportions equal
Pooled proption = 0.41; standard deviation = sqrt(0.41 * 0.59) = 0.49
Z statistic = (p1-p2) / (sigma * sqrt(1/n1+1/n2)) =2.99
p-value = 0.0014.
That seems pretty significant to me. Go to the top of the class, and jump off.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
There was an episode of "Scientific American Frontiers" on PBS this very subject. I think the episode was titled "What's in a dream." They performed experiments on this. They had a theory that your mind works on complicated problems while you sleep.
I attribute this to the reason why I often wake up in the morning or middle of the night with "Aha!" types of answers to difficult problems from the previous day.
I've been using this to solve difficult programming problems for years.
I've noticed that I tend to make numerous grammar and spelling errors that I don't notice if I type essays, reports, or slashdot posts when I'm tired. Errors that seemed correct at the time I typed them stand out sore thumbs when I read through them again, especially when I've just woken up in the morning or something.
Also, when you've just written it, you tend to read things as you meant them, not as they're actually written. When you put it down, do something else (sleep, play sports, whatever) and then come back, you're no longer reading it directly from the page/screen rather than partially from memory.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Uh, no.
Coleridge was in an opium-induced stupor when he got the inspiration for the poem. Here are some sources that back this up (including comments from the poet himself):
You can read about the poem and its origins here, or you can read original notes on the poem from the author and others who knew him here. You can also read the original poem here.
--Mark
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Take an 8-digit string formed from the numbers 1, 4, and 9. A series of two-digit comparisons is done. The result of the comparison is the same digit if they are the same, or the "missing" digit if they are different. That is, 1 1 -> 1, while 1 4 -> 9.
Start by comparing the first two digits, and from then on, compare your current result with the next digit in the string. Their example is 11449494, which leads to the results 1, 9, 1, 4, 4, 1, 9. The last result is the final answer.
The trick is that the original strings were "generated in such a way that the ... second [result] coincided with the final solution." People who found this trick were deemed to have gained insight into the pattern.
I think the study is bogus because of this. Sure, some people will notice the pattern, but careful people might choose to carry out the full calculation anyway, just to make sure. Any given string could follow the pattern or not. What they're demonstrating is how easily people can be tricked into finding patterns that may or may not be there. This kind of learning leads to racial profiling --- the result of the easy observation (race) implies the result of the more difficult one (criminality).
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
Word of advice to anyone thinking about giving the Uberman sleep schedule a chance: check what actual experts think about it first. I recommend sleep researcher Dr. James Maas's book "Power Sleep".
Never take lifestyle advice from some guy who wrote an Everything2 article at face value. Do your research. Dr. Maas has.
The input number is 11449494.
1 and 1 are the same, yields 1. (first two digits)
1 and 4 are different, yields 9. (first result with next digit)
9 and 4 -> 1
1 and 9 -> 4
4 and 4 -> 4
4 and 9 -> 1
1 and 4 -> 9 finished!
A simple counter-example to the pattern is 14141414, which yields the results 9449119.
Clearly the final result (9) is not the same as the second result (4).
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
Being startled awake might work, but that doesn't happen very often.
If you stay in the exact position you were sleeping in, and slowly transition from sleeping to waking, you can often remember details more clearly.
Or, you can arrange to be startled awake. Supposedly Salvador Dali would hold a spoon in his hand while dozing off, and the spoon would drop and wake him up just after falling asleep (and entering REM) and thus inspired his paintings of melting clocks (and spoons).