Slashdot Mirror
Google's Math Puzzle
An anonymous reader writes "Commuters in Cambridge, Mass., are scratching their heads over signs challenging passers-by to solve a complicated math problem. The mysterious banners are actually a job-recruiting pitch from Google."
NPR is clueless. That's why I am the one getting hired by Reebok! The URL was really 1828675309.com and let you to an OGG of Blink182 singing the standard Reebok commercial. At the end you were asked to go down to Foot Locker and buy a specific pair of shoes. On the bottom of the shoe was a keypad. Once you dialed 1829675309 you were connected with a Reebok HR rep and giving a job at a local Foot Locker.
Job as a Google engineer, sheesh. What a load of crap! Would you like whitener or a pair of extra soft socks with your shoes? Perhaps a Nuggets jersey?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Easy peasy japonesy
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
about 20 mins worth of programming, and i'm not that smart. it ends up taking you to this page.
I hope that drivers who see that can still pay attention to the road. Regardless of whether they are trying to think about it or not.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
if it would be acceptable to hack a whois database to see what domains are registered to google.com and just go there without solving the math problem. In fact, maybe they'd prefer that way, since Google has nothing to do with prime numbers but everything to do with the Internet.
I computed all those units faster then anybody else! Ill definetely get the job!
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
Monday, July 12, 2004 Warning: We Brake For Number Theory
If any Silicon Valley drivers have found that traffic is moving more slowly than usual these days on the southbound 101 right around Ralston, you may have us to blame. Last week we unveiled a billboard that's a bit unusual in that it promotes Google only to one very narrow constituency: engineers who are geeky enough to be annoyed at the very existence of a math problem they haven't solved, and smart enough to rectify the situation.
Google Billboard
In other words, the billboard (which offers problem-solvers the URL to, sorry, a page containing an even harder problem), is a recruiting campaign. We've always worked hard to hire the smartest engineers we can find, and we thought this would be a cool way to find a few more. Perhaps including you. If you're a math or computer whiz who doesn't happen to live within shouting distance of Palo Alto -- good luck, and we're looking forward to hearing from you.
- A. Googler
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
This is at least the second time google has done this. The first was on a billboard along US 101 in Silicon valley. /. may have covered it then, but I can't find the article so here is one from news.com (note that the caption to the picture if you read the NPR article also references the same billboard.)
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
I don't have the Slashdot link, but here's the linked-to article the last time around: (beware of Slashdot induced spaces in the url).
t h+ mystery+billboard/2100-1023_3-5263941.html?tag=nef d.pop 2004-07-13 10:33:02
http://news.com.com/Google+recruits+eggheads+wi
In a kind of geek "Jeopardy," the billboard read:"{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits e}.com." The answer, 7427466391.com, would lead a puzzle-sleuth to a Web page with yet another equation to solve, with still no sign the game was hosted by Google.
Mastering that equation would lead someone to a page on Google Labs, the company's research and development department, which reads: "One thing we learned while building Google is that it's easier to find what you're looking for if it comes looking for you. What we're looking for are the best engineers in the world. And here you are.
"As you can imagine, we get many, many resumes every day, so we developed this little process to increase the signal-to-noise ratio."
I spent two days on the second puzzle (the number from e just leads you to a site with the real puzzle), only to realize that the answer was far, far simpler than I had been looking for. I think buildings two blocks down heard the "Doh!" ;-)
A hint for those who want it...
If you're searching through all of your number theory memories and reference texts for a solution, you've left the solution far behind.
... in the mathematical sense? It strikes me that it probably isn't, since the decimal expansion of e is base dependent, and most "interesting" properties of number are not, IMHO, dependent on the number of fingers our forefathers used for counting.
Is there any method for the solution besides a brute force search and an efficient algorithm for primality testing?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
...you could just google for the answer:
7427466391
Now, is that a better or worse answer than figuring it out yourself?
Beep beep.
Screw the answer...I just want the job @ colorful Google!!!
The URL was really 1828675309.com
That's not resolving and I think I know why...
Jenny, I got your number
I need to make you mine
Jenny, don't change your number
8675309 (8675309)
8675309 (8675309)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The next step.
Found on Wikipedia.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
They are still doing this? I thought they pulled those 6mo ago. The answers are all over the internet.
The first one leads to a url, second to another, and that gives you a pin# to submit your resume w/.
Im glad
I'm lazy, so I just Googled the answer.
In case you're wondering -- or forgot -- e is the base of the natural system of logarithms, having a numerical value of about 2.71828 (though the number goes on forever).
Get file with copy of prime numbers. Get file with copy of largest precision of e. Use perl to scan for all 10 digit primes and then look for the first one in e.
Profit
or am I missing something?
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
Personally, I like this approach. Maybe the problem isn't extraordinarily difficult to solve, but the ad itself has a useful purpose for Google's HR department: it finds people who are willing to solve a problem whose solution is not immediately obvious without any immediate gain, other than satisfying their curiosity. That has to be a nice plus for Google. They can limit their hiring process to those individuals and from there give them more challenging problems, take them through the interview process, etc.
Live free or die
Remember kids, you don't have to KNOW anything any more. This is the age of the search engine.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Use Google to find the solution to Google's puzzle.
Guess they just want people who know how to use a search engine. :)
...and it just displays some guy's resume. Maybe 42 isn't the answer after all!
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I won't post the URL, but here's what it says in case you want a jump on the second question;
Unfortunatley, the fun ends here. When you enter the correct password, you are taken to google lab's hiring page which I presume is accessible without jumping through hoops.
..mork
Actually, the answer (to the second part of the problem at least) is 49 in this case :) close but no cigar.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Well, having received all the time under the spotlight Google has, with it going public and all, I'd be surprised if this kind of aggressive propaganda eventually doesn't result in a aggressive -although segmentary- outcry against the company.
A group could think the strong focused targetting implied in the ad is racist; or even that leaving people thinking makes google responsible for a climb in the number of accidents on the road : )
After all, it seems logical: The anti-google movement has to become strong, eventually.
And yes, I'm aware of http://www.google-watch.com/.
O make me a mask
these billboards are in Cambridge, MA, and not College Station, TX.
They have like $31billion in market capitalization now and this is the best they can do?
I have heard rumors that Microsoft does something similar, pose math riddles during job interviews.
I suspect these are just ways around the legal prohibitions on testing job candidates. Employers want to identify the smartest job applicants, and these informal riddles allow them to do that legally.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
The account appears to be locked.
#!
The correct answer is 11.
Where do I apply?
In the latest issue Dr. Dobbs (you get a free subscription if you attend LinuxWorldConf), they had a pullout job application. It was in the style of an SAT test and was filled with such "oh we're so smart and clever and funny and funky funky fresh" questions such as "write a haiku on database caching" and "the box below is empty. fill it with something" and other questions where any of the questions could be considered correct.
It was really annoying. It didn't make me want to work there at all. It was like a "oh we're so smart mensa+masturbating club".
The digits are 7427466391.
Here is the website which has another puzzle, and it says :
Congratulations. You've made it to level 2. Go to www.Linux.org and enter Bobsyouruncle as the login and the answer to this equation as the password.
f(1)= 7182818284
f(2)= 8182845904
f(3)= 8747135266
f(4)= 7427466391
f(5)= __________
The answer here is 5966290435. This number can also be found in the sequence of 'e'
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
The point is that if you're really smart enough to figure that out, Google wants to see your resume, and for good reason -- it's probably got some experience doing the kinds of things they care about on it. If you just went to the Google hiring page and skipped the problem, well, they could care less.
stuff |
Answer to 2nd puzzle is @ http://www.mkaz.com/math/google/.......
spend less time pussy footing about hiring PhDs to pat on the back while MS starts catching them in the search stakes, and spend more time utilising their market share to push :
a) a jabber based IM linked to their gmail sign-in
b) a google browser, or a good set of plugins for firefox
I have had a few searches recently on google which weren't high quality and there are alot of spammers trying to gain attention. Page rank was a breakthrough, and google is still the best, but it wasn't THAT amazing and they need to extend into IM.
Once they have people with an email and IM service linked to a username/pass they have a solid base that will weather with them while they brew up their magic.
They are in a weak position, if another search came in right now which was more powerful... they could lose half their market share in a year. IM and email would halt that by far. And if it's based around open standards I would be cheering them on all the way.
Does Google not realize what these billboards are going to do? Think of the poor embattled commuters sitting in suburban to urban traffic clog.
Honking at each other.
Bitching on their cell phones about their wives while pissing off the person(s) behind them who are also on their cell phones bitching about the guy that is jabbering on his phone and not moving forward with traffic.
Bumping each other and causing just enough damage to their cars to NOT really want to risk an insurance claim but also enough to want to get it fixed before the neighbors think they drive a shitty car.
Flipping over and killing each other because one of them thought that he/she had to get to work about 30mph faster than everyone else, because that one person has a much busier day of meetings than everyone else on the highway.
Enter Google -- further frustrating drivers with friggin' math problems on billboards. What? You don't think people will look at them enough to be distracted and frustrated at learning that they're not really Google material?
I call bullshit. 'cause that bitch on the uncontested divorce for $299 billboard torments me every day. Not because I don't like my marriage or want a divorce. No -- she begs the question -- "Can you beat me in court if you want the dog and the 50" plasma TV? Eh, buddy?"
Fuck you lady. Fuck you and your uncontested divorce. And fuck Google for teasing me with a job that I probably will have never known existed if it weren't for people that are actually qualified to answer the math problem having posted the g'damned answers here and made feel stupid as shit.
I'd complain more, but this guy behind me in his gas guzzling SUV is honking at me to move forward one car length while we drive past an accident. Thank god for WiFi in the car. If he honks again, I'm threatening him with the Airsoft 9mm I have in the glove compartment.
IronChefMorimoto
First[Position[FromDigits /@e Q]]
/@ Partition[RealDigits[N[E,1000]][[1]],10,1])[[100]]
Partition[RealDigits[N[E,1000]][[1]],10,1],_?Prim
{100}
(FromDigits
7427466391
(Yes, I realise the answer is all over the web,
this was still fun to figure out)
Google sucks ass anyway (not the search engine, working for the company). If you don't want to move to Mt. View California about the only jobs available at their data centers all over America are hardware managers (ooh - order replacement ide drives...) and data center techs. Google is screwing the hell out the data center techs, luring people into quitting stable jobs for a chance to get in the door at Google - using "contract positions" to build the data centers while leading people into thinking they'll get hired on and can climb their ladder to a sys admin position. If you don't believe, me do a quick monster.com search. Guess what happens when the data centers are built and the techies contracts are up... "Don't do evil" my ass.
One of many sites already
Ho hum.
Ignore my sig :-)
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
Perhaps the modder completely understood the joke and just thought it was lame, confusing for those who didn't get the joke, and overrated as very funny. Funny is in the eye of the beholder---an unfunny mod is needed to counteract all the funny mods.
http://www.7427466391.com
Congratulations. You've made it to level 2. Go to www.Linux.org and enter Bobsyouruncle as the login and the answer to this equation as the password.
f(1)= 7182818284
f(2)= 8182845904
f(3)= 8747135266
f(4)= 7427466391
f(5)= __________
Final Level leads you to this page:
http://www.google.com/labjobs/index.html
You just need to figure out if you want to solve it and put on your resume of just apply anyway since you have the final page!
. . . unless they figure out this one simple fact:
Math is not English. (Or Math English, if you prefer.)
Language can only be boiled down to equations so far. There always comes a point where subjectivity, ambiguity, irony, nuance or some other non-mathematical factor takes over. And when it does, it takes over in such a big way that the math breaks down and renders all the previous work null and void.
Let me know when they start hiring brilliant people who understand language, then I might be interested in applying.
Besides, everyone knows that poets get more dates than mathematicians.
Read any good sonnets lately?
Is it me or is this kind of question not the stuff of genius. I mean it's just a case of writting a program to brute force the answer. The only leap is figuring out the 49 / sum of digits bit.
Clever maths stuff doesn't (usually) require brute force. Things like the proof of infinite primes and proof of the irrationality of 2^0.5 - now they are clever. Next time I suggest they have a bill board asking for the proof of Goldbach Conjecture
The billboard answer is:
http://www.7427466391.com
which brings you to:
Congratulations. You've made it to level 2. Go to www.Linux.org and enter Bobsyouruncle as the login and the answer to this equation as the password.
f(1)= 7182818284
f(2)= 8182845904
f(3)= 8747135266
f(4)= 7427466391
f(5)= __________
Each number is in the digits of e, and each set sums up to 49, so you just need to find the 5th set of numbers in e whose sum is 49.
which is: 5966290435
chaching, you've got a job!
Linky
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
All the solutions you need
Enjoy.
Here's the Google Billboard picture
(Also note the ClearChannel name at the bottom of the billboard...)
This guy blogged his full ANSI C source with the solution: http://www.livejournal.com/users/vab1916/3492.html
Has anyone seen this recruiting tool? Similar to the billboards but with 21 questions: some math, some programming, some just down right silly. I saw it as an insert to the Sept 04 issue of Physics Today. I was going to submit as a Slashot article, but couldn't find a web site with the questions and I'm too damn lazy to scan them into my own web site. If you search GLAT in google you will find several hits on discussion groups and blogs that discuss it. When I first saw it Google gave no hits on GLAT.
First, find the first 1, 3, 7, or 9 after the first ten digits after the decimal. Take the preceding 9 digits, and run it through a Prime Number Checker. (The algorithm is in the source).
Really, the hardest part is determining the farthest decimal points of e. Here's the formula: limn->infinity (1 + 1/n)n.
It's lazy, impatient, and full of hubris! BTW, I get a finder's fee.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Google is trying to make job seekers a hell and misery.
so many {number}.com own by google,
what'll happened if google register {my phone number}.com and point to google.com?
-- Hasbullah bin Pit (sebol)
Interestingly enough this will give the answer, faster than ever writing a program for it.
Do you think if I told them I Googled for the answer they would give me the job?
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
If you even care about the problem you meet the first cut. The second problem seperates the "men from the boys." Yes, you can cheat but what does that buy you?
This is a joke. Here's why:
Once you solve the billboard puzzle, you get to this page:
http://www.7427466391.com
that has the following text:
Congratulations. You've made it to level 2. Go to www.Linux.org and enter Bobsyouruncle as the login and the answer to this equation as the password.
f(1)= 7182818284
f(2)= 8182845904
f(3)= 8747135266
f(4)= 7427466391
f(5)= __________
NEXT:
You go to http://www.linux.org and enter Bobsyouruncle as the Login name and enter 6969696969 as the password. You get this page:
LOGIN FAILED
Your attempt to login failed for the following reason:
we did not find a matching login/password.
Please Note:
For security reasons, your account will be locked after three login failures. If you have some doubt as to your login name or password, we suggest you go to the account problems page and have your password and/or login mailed to you while your account is still active.
Due to heavy administrative workload, locked accounts may take up to one week to be unlocked.
NEXT:
But if you want to skip that step, you can, because eventual goal is to get you to this web page:
http://www.google.com/labjobs/index.html
I think that shows a lot more thought than coming up with the equation in the first place.
As for using it to narrow applications to only "smart" applicants, there are a lot of other ways of doing so. Like following up on referrals...
Obligatory Plug - Please check out my online novel
and fyi - even though corporate Google doesn't drug test and has tons of perks (for those in Mt. View California) - the "contract positions" their baiting people with in a lot of major cities come with NO perks and pay through payroll.com (which requires a drug test). Google is going the way of Mindspring-turn-Earthlink. Its sad.
First 100,000 digits of the number e
*yawn*
1. Sue IBM
2. ???
3. Profit!
If you have the answer to #2, please contact Darl McBride at SCO.com. We have an immediate opening for someone who can solve this riddle.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You can find the answer on Wikipedia - The Exponential
And it leads to:
However, I found it a nice challenge to take (not too complicated either), and if you get challenged that while working at Google, it must be a pretty interesting job to have.At first I was discouraged because I thought the billboard was looking for primes in pi, not e.
here's my solution
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
I tried plugging the series into Google Sets but it didn't have an answer for me.
Google must be looking for an engineer to help make that feature more useful.
That's just kind of clever thinking we're looking for. How does a corner office and $150K/year sound?
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
There is a picture of a fax machine, with this text.
To send a fax:
Dial the four digit access code Y
where 60097 equals f(f(f(Y)))
This machine has extension number Z
where f(f(Z)) = 1
(If you forgot your orientation packet,
E(x) = number of letters
when x is written out in American English
f(x) = 3[E(x)]^^3 -x)
Then there's the invitation to send your resume, etc.
PS yes I know that the American English bit is imprecise.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
Also there was th Google Labs Appitude Test in Linux Journal. Including the question "whats wrong with Unix"
A few sample questions from it:
#2 Write a haiku describing possible methods for predicting search traffic seasonality.
#4 You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. There is a dusty laptop here with a weak wireless connection. There are dull, lifeless gnomes strolling about. What dost thou do?
A) Wander aimlessly, bumping into obstacles until you are eaten by a grue.
B) Use the laptop as a digging device to tunnel to the next level.
C) Play MPoRPG until the battery dies along with your hopes.
D) Use the computer to map the nodes of the maze and discover an exit path.
E) Email your resume to Google, tell the lead gnome you quit and find yourself in a whole different world.
#9 This space left intentionally blank. Please fill it with something that improves upon emptiness.
#17 Consider a function which, for a given whole number n, returns the number of ones required when writing out all numbers between 0 and n. For example, f(13)=6. Notice that f(1)=1. What is the next largest n such that f(n)=n?
#20 What number comes next in the sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66, ?
A) 96
B) 1 followed by 100 zeros ( a Googol )
C) Either of the above
D) None of the above
#21 In 29 words or fewer, describe what you would strive to accomplish if you worked at Google Labs.
Was that supposed to be funny? If it was I think you need to be counteracted.
When I saw the banner ads in the T station I knew it was for Google. Also, is this really news? I had friends that have no clue about how the Internet works, mathematics, or computer science who were asking me if I saw the google ads in the T station about a week ago.
The latest issue I got of Linux Journal has in the middle of it a "Google Labs Aptitude Test" (I think that's what it was called). Has a bunch of IQ type problems and even just some random questions such as "What is your favorite equation?" It's pretty cool, and it comes with an envelope. If they like your answers they say they'll contact you. I'm not sure if this is in the news stand edition of LJ, I'm a subscriber.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I wrote this in a few minutes in Mathematica, and found the answer to the first puzzle. The second puzzle was annoying so I just searched google for it instead.
en = N[\[ExponentialE], 1000]; Table[x = (Floor[en*(10^k)*10^10] - Floor[en*(
10^k)]*10^10); If[PrimeQ[x], {k, x}, {k, 0}], {k, 0, 100}]
All is Number -Pythagoras.
SPOILER
The solutions are:
http://www.7427466391.com/
and:
5966290435
Computers! Whats wrong with using the brain.
This is the taxicab number (it appears in every single episode of Futurama). Now go and google.
they can KISS MY A$$
why does google and microsoft think they need so much brainpower?? it doesn't help.
I'm really not impressed.
Job seekers tend to complain about the bias of Google towards graduates of certain schools. Well, they can add one more school to the list.
Does anyone have the solution for the other google puzzle? the one with the colums with the numbers... 5 colums with numbers, and 1 number missing.
I googled for the answer, but I didn't see anything jump right out.
Dr Dobbs -- pages 3 & 4, #364 September 2004
Paste the following code into Mathematica, and execute it.
] ,2 ]]-48;Q [num],m ,".com"]o s,pos+9}]]?49,]o s+9}]+48]],
4 3 5
s=ToCharacterCode[StringDrop[ToString[N[E,1000]
pos=0;num=0;
While[num1000000000||!Prime
num=Mod[num*10+s[[++pos]],10000000000]]
Print[nu
pos=0;
Do[While[Apply[Plus,Take[s,{++p
Print["f(",i,")=",FromCharacterCode[Take[s,{pos,p
{i,5}]
The output is:
7427466391.com
f(1)=7182818284
f(2)=818284590
f(3)=8747135266
f(4)=7427466391
f(5)=59662904
what? There's nothing illegal about testing candidates. You can't discriminate on sex or race, but testing skills is totally ok.
good thing you aren't a lawyer... or are you?
Also, I must confess I didn't bother figuring out the puzzles, but found this on the web via Google. Just goes to show with Google around it's almost impossible to keep a web based secret more than a couple days now.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Damn you Tommy Tutone!!
After googling a while (actually it was not hard ;))
you can find explanation here:
http://www.mkaz.com/math/google/
But I like the aproach.
I saw a bunch of these in the Harvard Square T station. I have to admit that it aroused my curiousity.
I didn't stop to think on it too much, though. I figured it was by Register.com or someone, about hard-to-access domain names.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
I have heard rumors that Microsoft does something similar, pose math riddles during job interviews.
Sure. (at least they did ~7 years ago when I interviewed) I do it too when I interview people. It is a good way to see how people adapt to the unexpected and think on their feet.
This was hashed out on the JOS forum earlier in the summer: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default .asp?cmd=show&ixPost=160966
Your favorite
It took me about 3 minutes to find the answers of both puzzles in the internet... using google search.
<b>
Who is the smartest? the one who actual writes the code to find the answers in say 20 minutes or the one who uses google?
I suspect you are making a math joke, but i don't think i get it. I am assuming that the basis of the joke is binary and that you are suggesting that the first 10-digit prime number in e is actually the first 2-digit(decimal) number in e. But 11 is just the first 2-digit(decimal) prime number, not the first one in e. The first 2-digit(decimal) prime number in e is in fact 71.
On the other hand, perhaps you are imagining the the first 10-digit(binary) prime number in a binary expression of e. In this case, the answer is certainly going to be 11 as it is the ONLY 10-digit(binary) prime binary number.
OK, good joke. haha.
lysergically yours
Isn't the problem statement ambiguous?
So isn't a correct answer the smallest
(first) 10-digit prime??
Since e goes on forever, doesn't every digit pattern show up in "e"?
- Babson College Wellesley
- Bentley College Waltham
- Berklee College of Music Boston
- Boston Architectural Center Boston
- Boston College Newton
- Boston Conservatory, The Boston
- Boston University Boston
- Brandeis University Waltham
- Bunker Hill Community College Boston
- Cambridge College Cambridge
- Emerson College Boston
- Emmanuel College Boston
- Fisher College Boston
- Harvard University Cambridge
- Hellenic College Brookline
- Lesley College Cambridge
- MIT Cambridge
- Massachusetts College of Art Boston
- Massachusetts College of Pharmacy
- Mount Ida College Newton
- New England Conservatory of Music Boston
- New England School of Law Boston
- Northeastern University Boston
- Pine Manor College Chestnut Hill
- Radcliffe College Cambridge
- Simmons College Boston
- Suffolk University Boston
- Tufts University Medford
- Wellesley College Wellesley
- Wentworth Institute of Technology Boston
- Wheelock College Boston
Of course the local hi-tech/biotech/medical/finance/insurance/governmand Allied Health Sciences Boston
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
...I'd of been able to tell them why this idea wasn't going to work if they're search engine worked to any degree.
But I don't work for them, so they went and did it =)
That ad appeared on a billboard near Oracle headquarters, which usually contains some IBM ad tweaking Oracle. I'd expected that if I solved the problem, I'd get back a DB2 ad.
Math : Google Labs Problems
When do I start?
Yet Another Web Site
The latest issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal has a 3-page pullout of questions from Google: "Score high enough and we'll be in touch."
Some interesting questions, some difficult, some trivial ("This space left intentionally blank. Please fill it with something that improves upon emptiness").
phase 3 has been locked down. its on www.linux.org and has had too many failed login attempts. and eta, 1 week to unlock locked accounts. guess that idea just FAILED.
answers can be found here: http://www.mkaz.com/math/google/
the results from trying to login:
LOGIN FAILED
Your attempt to login failed for the following reason:
we did not find a matching login/password.
Please Note:
For security reasons, your account will be locked after three login failures. If you have some doubt as to your login name or password, we suggest you go to the account problems page and have your password and/or login mailed to you while your account is still active.
Due to heavy administrative workload, locked accounts may take up to one week to be unlocked.
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I recently got a new cell phone. I took information for a search and asked for a vanity number. Then I kept hearing the numbers as they told me what was available, checking it and telling them 'no.' Finally on the 11th try I got an acceptible number. What I was searching for was a 7 digit prime. Fortunately the number with area code was the product of two primes as well. Now I can give out either the ordinal index of the prime for the local, or the prime factors of the 10 digit number. People who are unable to deal with the math just can't call me!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
On various sources.
I thought for a moment I had gone back in time. Then I realised I just finished ready Get Fuzzy, so I felt better.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
A friend of mine sent me a picture of an EA-canada billboard along the same lines, though much much simpler.
It was white on black text:
char msg []={78,111,119,32,72,105,114,105,110,103,0};
The next puzzle looks fairly trivial (start by looking at offsets in e to 10-digit numbers), but I have a job so no time for such diversions.
this cool job ad...
Ok I will stop whining about old news
/. should have a news source rating system. Or even an author rating system.
I mean come on that is what you get for posting NPR news! *ducks*
I think
Give the people something to do between stories!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Pay a visit to http://www.haller.ws/logs/index.cgi?start=10&end=2 0&index=1 and search for "GoogleProblems" minus the quotes. You'll find TIFF files of each of Google's ads that have appeared in magazines!
Then there are people who are great software designers and implementors who have little ability to solve complex/obsure math problems. Google is throwing all those people away.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
In the most recent issue of the Mensa Bulletin, there was an insert which doubled as a test/job screening tool for Google with very geek-oriented questions. (What is wrong with UNIX? How would you fix it?) Some allowed for creativity (there's a blank rectangle with a message above saying that blank spaces are boring, fill it with something interesting).
Yes, I found it intriguing, but I was too lazy to fill it out. I was going to make a nice picture out of various forms of pasta glued to the page in that aforementioned blank space, but again, I couldn't be bothered to go to the supermarket just for that.
I personally would appreciate working with people who know that 2+2*10 does not equal 40! :)
1729
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
"I think it speaks well of the company that they try to weed out candidates by testing problem solving rather than by who has the prettiest resume."
And that's different from the math test companies give you, how?
All this talk about primes and calculators and such.
If only they had it in the Cube.
- Agilo
"What? There's nothing illegal about testing candidates. You can't discriminate on sex or race, but testing skills is totally ok."
It is illegal to give job candidates intelligence tests. So if you want smart employees, you need to find a way around the law.
Legally, the determination of whether you are engaged in discrimitory hiring practices is not based only on your intent. It also includes discrepant impact; If any any test which you administer as part of you job selection process favors a particlar race, then you are guilty of discrimimation. Courts have ruled that tests which measure intelligence are an illegal test for purposes selecting job candidates.
The only exception is that if you can show that that the test specifically measures the skill required for the job. For example, you could give driving tests to drivers. I doubt that if these same math riddles were posed on a written exam that they would pass that legal test for job-relatedness. Google would have to show in court that searching for prime numbers was part of the work that these employees would be expected to do on the job. They ony way employers can get away with this is to pose the same questions informally.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
If you go to the web site, it will say "View > Source". If you click View > Source (in most browsers) you will see the source code. Scroll down a bit, and you will see an absolutely huge chunk of binary and a link to http://nickciske.com/tools/binary.php. Go to the site and translate the binary and you'll get... more binary. You have to translate it about three or four times before you get the following: 26-14-12 7-22. Take each number and subtract it from 27. Then take that number and translate it to letters. (ie, 1 is A, 2 is B, 3 is C, etc.) It spells out Amo Te, which is Latin for I Love You. As far as I know, she never found it.
You can probably understand why I'm posting this as AC.
here is a solution in php.7 7572470936 99959574966967627724076630353547594571382178525166 42742746639193200305992181741359662904357290033429 52605956307381323286279434907632338298807531952510 19011573834187930702154089149934884167509244761460 66808226480016847741185374234544243710753907774499 20695517027618386062613313845830007520449338265602 9760";
<?
$e="71828182845904523536028747135266249
for($a=0;$astrlen($e);$a++){
$chunk = substr($e, $a, 10);
$tot = 0;
for($z=0;$zstrlen($chunk);$z++){
$tot = $chunk{$z} + $tot;
}
if($tot == 49){
echo $chunk."\n";
}
}
?>
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
When you view the html on the second page (http://7427466391.com/)
>
You will see the following
<td align=right>f(5)=</td>
<td>__________</td>
</tr
<!-- no help here -->
First thing I allways check with web based riddles is the html code, sometimes they hide interesting information in it, and I guess they expected that.
TruePunk | Games
Thursday Sept 16th, Highway 101: It was a calm day on 101 until Jim Bob, a.k.a. Bubba parked his pickup truck on the side of the road and declared enough was enough. Jim Bob was in search of an answer.
After several failed attempts at flipping the
billboard to uncover the google mystery that "plagued his journey from hayfield to that darn toot'n city", Mr. Bob used a TNT to detonate one side of the sign.
Sadly Bubba never did discover the answer. Bubba leaves behind his dog spot, and rover.
A memorial service is scheduled for Friday Sept 24th.
Some janitor with a penchant for anonymity and serious emotional problems with a fear of commitment will pass by and solve the problem, leaving Google to search for him. Could even make a decent movie....
never ever make a joke about s/o who has a fucking unbelievable TWO-DIGIT slashdot id!
the first problem is truly trivial:
h [digits]-9}];
digits = First[RealDigits[N[E,300]]];
numbers = Table[FromDigits[Take[digits,{n,n+9}]],{n,1,Lengt
primes = Select[numbers,PrimeQ[#]&]
First line prints out e as a list of its first 300 digits, second line forms 10 digit numbers from consecutive elements of the list, and the last line prints out the 10 digit numbers that are prime.
The problem with God is that he thinks he's Richard Wagner
There are approximately 400 million 10 digit prime numbers.
Of course, they compress well...
link:
http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/howmany.shtml
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Do you really want someone at work who spends all their day on the internet figuring out things for other companies?
Don't worry, it's okay to make jokes when said someone bought their two-digit slashdot id on ebay for $115.
42.
What legal prohibitions to testing job applicants exist? I skills test all my applicants (in the bus business but still), the Feds test all their applicants. I've personally had to take several tests for different jobs. There's nothing wrong with using objective testing criteria, even arbitrary objective testing criteria, when screening job applicants.
"Secrecy is the Beginning of Tyranny" "No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law" -Robert Heinlein
Purchased on eBay. You could get one too!
seriouslyexcited.net
That solution is poor because the billboard doesn't mention google at all.
Once you know its google that method works fine, but if you didn't know it wouldn't work..
Actually, this "test" is rather interesting. It reminds me with an experience I had...
I had a phone interview with a large consulting firm, and near the conclusion, they instructed me to go to a Web site and take a test that covered in great detail the topic I would be worknig with. Well, they never said I couldn't use the Internet as a reference, so in another window, I used Google and several other search tools to research some of the answers that I didn't know off the top of my head. After completing the test, the recruiter told me that I had scored in the top 10% of all respondents, and after a second face-to-face interview, I got the job.
The point is that many companies, when hiring employees, are more interested in how you go about solving problems and what resources you can bring with you that will help you answer the challenges that the job presents. Obviously, they want the correct answer, but they also want problem solvers, not brainiacs who just spew out calculation results.
...if they need to display posters like that in order the find the solutions to their problems. And they're not even offering to pay the people who solve them.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
i used to check ./ every day ...
lately, there seems to be less and less reasons to continue
now i don't think the editors even read the site any longer
wow - holy cow - same old sign, same old story
Now THATS funny!
And here's why: The people who did the hard math to solve the problem--hey, they'll make great coders, welcome aboard.
/. article successfully got other people to do the work for us, and then took credit for it.
Those of us who googled it or read the
Welcome aboard, manager!
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
it was a joke aswell. maybe not funny, but doesn't mean anyting you say it does.
Similar sentiments sir...
Do you think ANYONE actually knows their multiplication table up to 37?
Sheesh. Less coffee, more pampers.
{the set containing the names of the girls you have slept with in the past 6 weeks intersected with the set of fictional languages you have learned with the union of the set of fantasy worlds you live role play in }.com
Try this, the numbers start with the 2,6,24,100 digit so do g(x)=y there the y values are the indexes to get g(1)=2 g(2)=6 g(3)=24 g(4)=100, then for fun divide y by x to get 2,3,8,25 and notice the
g(x)=(g(x-1)*g(x-2))+(5-x) pattern 2,3,8,25,400,9999,... so then g(5)= 5(400)
so its the 10 digit number starting at the 2000 index so its f(5)=3955990067. I guess google did not see that one.
it wasn't funny and it wasn't modded funny. It was modded "Informative and Insightful". That makes the moderators that modded the original post and now that post asshats. You, as well, are an asshat.
My experience was different.
- and-you-will-get-hired-on-and-can-enter-our-mentor -program-to-climb-the-sys-admin-ladder-crap. Note: I'm already a sys admin for the last 8 yrs, they contacted me two days after the IP0, and the Google HR rep did not disclose that the position would be entry-level-contract (a major step back for me) until the day of the interview. I google searched for her name and contact number and found blog entries from others that had accepted these contract positions. I then emailed several of them asking for the inside scoop - el admino to el admino. The replies I got made it clear what was going on. I lost a lot of respect for Google.
Maybe its a function of post-IPO Google.
Maybe its a function of how desperate the HR representative is to fill those positions in a particular city.
I asked these questions bluntly and got the this-is-the-only-way-to-get-your-foot-in-the-door
Got that right. Try it and you'll be there all day. I also have to say, if I'd used matlab or pascal instead of python (or C++ for that matter), I'd have had it 10 minutes sooner. D'oh!
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
A crafty engineery already jumped through these hoops:t m
http://wernerkai.sites.uol.com.br/google/google.h
It's hype and bullshit like this that makes every wage-earning employee less and less valuable. Jobs are now becoming game show prizes, and the competition to earn them a side show in a progressively more grotesque and tragic display of suffering, despair and the deliberate torment of the powerless.
The dignity of a day's work for a day's wage BEGINS in the interview process. Forcing people to navigate some baroque and obscure cross between a deranged lab experiment and a carnival attraction as a requirement for consideration as a temporary meeting attendee is the height of arrogance, incompetence and greed.
It will not be long before everyone, including the "candidates" for these worthless prize packages dressed up as careers, has lost all respect for the workplace, as well they should. It is a festering, maggot-infested cesspool of thievery, avarice, envy and contempt for colleagues described by the harmless sounding euphemism "office politics."
Let's all watch the catered self-congratulatory theatrics celebrating the obsolescence of jobs. Then we can return to planning how we're supposed to build communities and neighborhoods without careers.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
That's the way I read it also.
I think the number is 1000314703.
:(
Look at 136986-136996 digits in e.
Though 1000314703.com doesn't work
"Ah, leeching off the work of others? Pointy haired haircut?
Welcome to management!"
The real site should be 0000000002.com.
The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences
+5 Smart ass is more like it :)
Wacky moderation abound in this thread.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
#include <stdio.h>
/* We implicitly eliminate all multiples of 2 and 3 by starting at 5, and
/* j is the index in our array of known primes. */
/* k is a known prime number. */ ..... ", k);
/* No point continuing once we know we have not got a prime. */
/* Every prime factor of a number must be smaller than the
/* If the remainder is non-zero here, then we must have fallen out of
/* Now we move on to the next known non-multiple of 2 or 3 */
/* If we just skipped 2, next time we must skip 4.
:) */
/* Sieve of Eratosthenes: a program to find prime numbers */
int main() {
int start_at = 5;
int up_to = 200;
int miss = 2;
alternately skipping 2 and 4. So, every number we look at is either
6n+1 or 6n+5. This is because;
6n = multiple of 2 and 3
6n+2 = even
6n+3 = multiple of 3
6n+4 = even */
int remainder, i, j, k, last;
int known[500];
known[0] = 2;
known[1] = 3;
int n_known = 2;
for (i = start_at; i <= up_to; ) {
printf("Looking for factors of %d\n", i);
remainder = 1;
last = 0;
for (j = 2; ((!last) && (j < n_known)); ) {
k = known[j];
printf("Trying %d
remainder = i % k;
if (!remainder) {
printf("%d is a multiple of %d.\n", i, k);
last = 1;
}
else {
printf("%d is NOT a multiple of %d; remainder is %d.\n",
i, k, remainder);
};
if (k * k > i) {
printf("%d is greater than the square root of %d.\n", k, i);
last = 1;
square root of that number; so we stop when we have
exceeded that. */
};
if ((!remainder) || (k * k > i)) {
last = 1;
};
++j;
};
the loop because we ran out of primes, or exceeded the square root,
rather than because we rejected an obvious multiple. So, we can
add i to our list of known primes. */
if (remainder) {
printf("%d looks like a prime.\n", i);
known[n_known++] = i;
};
i += miss;
miss = 6 - miss;
If we just skipped 4, next time we must skip 2. */
};
printf ("Found %d prime numbers smaller than %d\n", n_known, up_to);
for (i = 0; i < n_known; i++) {
printf("%d ", known[i]);
};
printf("\n");
return(0);
};
/* Note this may well need to be modified to run all the way up to 10 figures.
But that's no problem for a hacker
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
This month's copy of Physics Today had the Google Aptitude Test (GLAT) as an insert. I guess they they were interested in brainy people like physicists. For years, MicroSoft would recruit physics departments.
...". I roll my eyes then when a Google search returns "128,983,871 pages found".
I found some of the questions ironic. Like some say "in five lines say how you change this
I would have expected both you and the mods to get the joke, but apparently i'm wrong.
Personnally, if I was Google, if anyone could provide an answer that worked and why, I would give that person serious consideration for employment. Just people the monkeys in the math room came up with one answer, doesn't mean I ignore those who can prove that it can be something else. Then again I'm not Google so there is no way for me to know what they are looking for, but I'm thinking they are just looking for math-minded out-the-box thinkers.
Just a guy with an opinion
I'm insulted that you think I don't know 42 is the answer to life the universe and everything :)
However, I was amused in this case that 42 (the answer everyone always gives) happened to be so close to the actual answer (49)
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
My mistake, the 1729th decimal place is the beginning of the first occurrence of all ten digits consecutively in the decimal representation of e
(lowers his head in shame)
They've got one of these posted along Highway 101, too. For anyone not in the Bay Area, that's the (far) more heavily-used of the two highways that goes from San Francisco to San Jose.
Moo
(1) After solving the origional problem, the digits of f(1) should look mighty familiar...
(2) You might notice that the last 6 digits of f(1) are the same as the first 6 digits of f(2).
The other 4 digits in f(1) and f(2) have a certain similarity that I will not give away, but it implies that the digits of f(1) and f(2) have a common property. By checking you will find that the property holds for f(3) and f(4).
employees interview themselves for YOUR company.
I saw that bill board in downtown Seattle. My immediate reaction was, "That's dumb... Why would anyone want the URL http://www.7427466391.com/ ?"
They did this in San Jose a few months ago going North and South on 101. I just assumed it had hit slashdot then and I'd missed the article.
I saw the billboard and decided to solve it. Went googling for a list of pre-computed primes and found the answer already solved instead.
plus-good, double-plus-good
never ever make a joke about s/o who has a fucking unbelievable TWO-DIGIT slashdot id!
No silly, bigger is better!
Sigh. Far and away the easiest way to find the answer to this question is to google for it.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Does anyone know where to find similar problems? This one was kind of challenging... me like.
google is nothing but an overrated, neo dot com, hubris bloated, geek infested, search tool. well at least they're hiring...
Ugh, this is old news. July 12, 2004... Two months old xX;
how well can people use Google?
Though a better puzzle would have been:
{What's the name of the company whose sole goal is to invade the privacy and index the entire life of every entity, living or dead, biological or not in the known universe?}.com
Mathematica is commercial crap. Pari-GP is GPL.
i nt(m," ",a)))) %10);r( a)==49,print(m," ",a)))
default(realprecision,2000);
e=exp(1):
f or(m=1,200,a=floor(10^m*e)%10^10;if(isprime(a),pr
summ(b)=r=b%10;for(j=1,9,r=r+floor(b/10^j
for(m=1,200,a=floor(10^m*e)%10^10;if(summ
Folks have posted Mathematica and other code here, which, while very elegant, treats this as a math problem. However, the problem can be viewed as a simple text processing task and solved by standard Unix tools, pretty much on the command line. The first step is to get the file ee710.txt from Project Gutenberg, e.g. here. Then it's a simple matter of using an AWK or Python script to generate ten-digit substrings and pipe them into factor.
Marklar: marklar
After reading the first 20 or so comments posted in response to this article, I've come to the conclusion that the average /. reader is a fucking cry-baby.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
What irked me is that 4 numbers aren't really enough. I was factoring the numbers and found a formula based on numbers going down the center, vertical row of Pascal's triangle that was related to the starting index of strings themselves. The first string started at the 2nd digit, the second at the 6th, the third at the 24th, and the fourth at the 100th. Those numbers are the middle of the 0th, 2nd, 4th, and 6th rows of Pascal's triangle. So the [1,2,3,4]th numbers start at the [2,6,24,100]th positions of "e". [n+1]*[[(2*(n-1))!]/[((n-1)!)^2]] also matches the answers, leading me to plug 5 into that formula, get 420, find the 10 digits of e starting at the 420th position, and plug that in. Wrong answer.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Shorter:
en = 7247093699
bananas like monkeys.
Alas, at the goal some people might see
(META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW").
8-)
i will not use so many caps
so many caps i will not use
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Ok, I used to love math in highschool, but have let my math skills drift many years ago. Looking at the first question I don't even understand what it's asking.
Looking at this site this person breaks down his logic: http://www.mkaz.com/math/google/
My first intrepretation of the problem was to find the first 10-digit prime...
After that he loses me, and he even provides an explanation of E but I don't really get it and how it applies to this question. Can someone explain the question in a way that someone with basic math skills can understand it?
Sigh... I miss math, there was a time when I believed my career would be in mathematics/computer science. Instead of being stuck in a dead end job.
Be sure to drink your ovaltine.
f(1) appears at the first digit after the decimal point of e. f(2) at the 5th f(3) at the 23th f(4) at the 99th so maybe 1, 5, 23 and 99 have something in comon. but what? another way to interpret f() is to take the 2 in front of the decimal point into account and say that f(1) begins with the second digit of e.. next idea would be to take the ending digits 10, 14, 32, 108 or 11, 15, 33, 109 can anybody tell me about the system behind it? thanks, sebastian
In base 2, the first 10 digit prime to appear as consecutive digits of the natural log base is
1011000101
which is 709 in base 10,the 127th prime number which appears in E at position 2^-24 (24 binary digits to the left of the binary point)
E in base 2 out to this first 10 digit prime sequence is
10.101101111110000101010001011000101
Top that for early occurring match!!
There is not god dam web page at www.1011000101.com
Dr. Null
Explain how a TWO-DIGIT slashdot id! relates to intelligence or anything else for that matter.
other solution:
e[d_] = Floor[E*10^d]
f[d_] = Mod[e[d + 9], 10^10]
For[i = 0, i 100, i++, x = f[i];
If[PrimeQ[x],
Print["found a solution ", x, " at the ", i,
"th digit after decimal point."]]]
First one to figure out this number a-8bce11916f-c9c4392b72-bab9bb35fc get the job. Quick, there's no second chance!
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Note that it is only illegal under certain circumstances. Basically, you can't use a test which discriminates against some protected group if the test is not directly related to the performance of the job you are hiring for.
FYI,
there's also a Google Labs aptitude test / recruiting ad in this month's Linux Journal
I noticed in my latest copy of Linux Journal there was a "work for google" questionaire. Filled with math and logic puzzles. Seems that google is stretching to find the minds they require. Has any company gone this far to find smart "enough" people before?
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
google will know you didn't come from the correct page.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The best thing for me about this contest, was that I could come up with a solution. do I have time to implement it? no. Do I even have a compiler on my system that I could use? no. But do I relish the fact that my 2+ years in a comp sci degree path provided me with enough math and general knowledge to describe how to do (solve) this? you bet. Even though I do different things now (immunology research) the basic grounding in math and logic is always useful. Thanks google!
I was thinking of writing something along those lines (except I have a history test tomorrow). IntegerDigits may work well/better for what I think you're doing with Floor; it also may avoid needing to calculate N[E] immediately.
By the way, E works as well as \[ExponentialE] -- it's quicker to type, and also makes more sense in the console (I find the notebook an annoying waste of resources).
A few years ago, the obvious solution method would have been "Zone transfer .com and look for big strings of number" or "Use a domain name seller's site and look for names starting with 0, 1, 2, 3, .. 9". That would give you a small set of 10-digit domain names, and you'd only need to bother doing math if they'd gotten tricky, e.g. put in a few other numbers, some of which might not be prime, and some of which might not be digits of e, and some of which might be a string of prime numbers from e other than the first such. But it'd still be a much smaller problem.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
http://www.michaelhoover.org/mike/ solved this on July 17th :S WTF is this September nonsense ? (cut, paste and remove spaces. I can't be arsed making a link)
Yes, of course you need to get details like that correct, at least if you're using a language where it's a problem, as opposed to a calculator language like bc / dc.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
the first part is easy, everyone has solved that. It's the second stage that get's ya. Still, this is over a month old news.
-Tim Louden
It is quite common to do offbeat tests to see how a person will respond. A common one is describe the process to make coffee. This allows the person to show how they work under pressure, how well they communicate and to a degree how they think. If they sit there dumbstruck guess what happens next time you have a system down for no apparent reason.
By the way one correct answer was, take team hand over money to waiter receive coffee. This showed thinking outside the square and therefore a perfect candidate for that particular job.
Just write a script storing the number http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/gifcity/e.1mi l as a string, and then store the first 10 digits as numbers in an array. Constantly factor that, if not incriment. Too bad I'm just too damn lazy to write it myself.
http://www.unix-girl.com/blog/archives/001269.html
The billboard reads:
char msg[]={78,111,119,32,72,105,114,105,110,103,0};
% dig first10-digitprimefoundinconsecutivedigitsofe.com
;; ANSWER SECTION:. 86400 IN CNAME pjn.qsrch.net.
first10-digitprimefoundinconsecutivedigitsofe.com
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Ahahahaha, if google needed hackers that'd be a slam-dunk.
And this...
Select[Table[Floor[10^10 FractionalPart[N[e\[ExponentialE],j+15] 10^j]],{j,0,200}],PrimeQ]
Better policy is to not hire the unlucky. Throw half the applications away without even looking at them.
You're right, it's sophomoric, not deep math. The 2nd problem is not a mathematical problem, but a psychological puzzle (which tests lateral thinking). It's more about search than math.
However, there are clues that are left out in the open for people to guess at what the puzzle-writer was getting at - the first two numbers are obviously consecutive digit-sequences from e. So it's got to be related to the decimal expansion of e, and some property of 10-digit sequences in that expansion.
After that, there's still an infinity of properties that the first 4 sequences share, but they're obviously looking for a parsimonious solution. The summation to 49, though not obvious, will eventually hit somebody who does the "sum of digits" test to check for divisibility by 3 or 9.
I also make the observation that these are all congruent to 4 (mod 9), so there are several alternative solutions to f(5) that are probably very different. These won't lead to the Google Labs link, so I surmise that Google really wants to hire people who conform to their preconceived notions of what the solution is; not alternative, off-the-beaten-track ideas of what the solution could also be. So that excludes me as well. How about that for a tautology?
Folks, I'll tell ya, finding the programmer that can actually answer that reasonably well is a challenge. Granted this was mostly during the internet boom, but I was appalled at how bad most of our applicants were.
Rats... 8675309.com wasn't it.
"Damn you, Tommy Tutone."
Note that surface of the Sun is usually estimated to be about 5780K which is similar to the midpoint of the hell temperature range (5531.15K).
Therefore one might conclude that these "extreme makeovers" might be brilliant ...
thus the
need for sun glasses. :-)
I'm sure other interpretations exist.
chongo (was here)
I disagree that you never had to know anything. In fact, I would propose that most people prior to the 1960s were extremely knowledgeable and could make far more intuitive and quick judgement than most people today who require the quick ability to look things up. The difference is that a good base of knowledge is really "history" so you can place your knowledge amongst the tested knowledge of time. You may know less, but everything you learn afterwards is put in context. In a social sense, this allows knowledge to be cumulative and is especially important when viewed in the light of social organization and awareness. Having infinite access to quick facts and opinions to a large degree undermines the legitimacy of time tested rote knowledge. People today may have more of the quick answers to meaningless facts, but they don't realize that many of the important things that happen in life and society were figured out hundreds or thousands of years ago. In many ways, the access to limitless information has just separated people by removing the need for concise oral and written history.
If the first guy to the second site changed the password on everybody?
Hmmm, I have 5 mod pts, its time to metamod, and on top of that I have to meta-metamod? When do I get to read slashdot?
It's really quite funny especially if you read the reply by the grandparent's poster.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
I was deeply sincerely hoping that this trick at Google labs would give a bit of insight: Google Sets attempt But no, no results, nada, nothing.
fe fi fo foo
why is this only now on /.?
its been around for atleast a few months now. . .
I can't work on a place that produces such outdated code. What might their products look like? '98 stuff? I have my dignity!
these kinds of problems certainly don't lend themselves to believing the formulator is more than sophomoric; it takes just a few minutes to solve the 2nd sequence problem given a table of the digits of e and a bit of thought. Really smart people always answer 0 to all sequence completion problems, however, because they are clear on the irrationality of answering any particular way to an abduction problem. But they don't teach Kripke or Kolmogorov at Stanford, apparently...
Google would have to show in court that searching for prime numbers was part of the work that these employees would be expected to do on the job
They expect them to do some programming to find the solution. And programming is part of their work.
took me 15 minutes to break it. lets see if the lameness filter likes it...
NOTE: include gmp.h and stdio.h, link with gml
const int LEN = 10, PREC = 30000, LIMIT = 10000;
void approx(mpf_t out, int n) {
mpf_t tmp1;
mpf_init(tmp1);
mpf_set_d(out, 1.0);
mpf_set_d(tmp1, 1.0);
for(int i = 1; i 4) return;
}
}
}
int main() {
mpf_set_default_prec(PREC);
mpf_t a;
mpf_init(a);
approx(a, LIMIT);
char buffer[10240], *input = buffer;
gmp_sprintf(input, "%.10220Ff", a);
input[1] = input[0]; input++;
test1(input);
test3(input);
return 0;
}
The most interesting thing is that this is precisely the technique suggested in the 1957 book "Parkinson's Law".
:-)
I'm not sure the original was serious, though...
(8-DCS)
You've got to be kidding... a 2-digit ID for $115? That's absurd ;-)
I recently saw someone post with a 1-digit ID... I think it was #7 or something. I wonder how many of us with IDs 100 are still using the site legitimately from the beginning (back in the Chips & Dips days).....
I think I am supposed to be excited about the ad, about some people working in Google, about google HR people being oh so smart... But I am not, actually I think it's rather silly.
The problems that Google faces are not ones to be solved by genius mathematicians/engineers. Well, some of them may be, but most of the improvements in search will probably come from hard and pretty uninspired work. Google doesn't seem to realise this (or should I say "doesn't agree with this"), and I think it's their big mistake.
P.S. I definitely can realise how fun working with very smart people in a very comfortable environment can be, I just don't think it makes much sense for Google.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
You've got to be kidding... a 2-digit ID for $115? That's absurd ;-)
Maybe for you. But I wanted a piece of slashdot history and a beta acct was worth the money, IMHO. It was a crazy birthday present to myself. Yes it's wacky but think about it pez... you have a two digit uid. If you wouldn't sell it for any price, it's gotta have some value. If not, send over your uname & pass and I'll thank you kindly.
I recently saw someone post with a 1-digit ID... I think it was #7 or something. I wonder how many of us with IDs 100 are still using the site legitimately from the beginning (back in the Chips & Dips days).....
Damn I wish I had seen that. As for who is still left from the beginning -- many were likley scared off by trolls...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
That site isn't even registered by them.
Well, it probably hurt that you werent some uppity Stanfordite. No wonder you got kicked out. It's one thing to have preference as a person to their college, it's another to base your entire company around the people from there and the practices of said university. Given how Google was, it's no surprise we have some of their side jobs as they are. Uppity people in need of a constant humbling.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
In the latest issue of Linux Journal Google has included a "Google Labs Aptitude Test". I've scanned the test and posted the images on my website. Some really odd and interesting questions. By the way, an icosahedron is a 20-sided polygon.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)