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."

Comments

Re:not that complicated

[div_2n]

Presumably they are looking for geeks to apply. They put that out there and it gets posted to Slashdot (which they probably expected) and gets deciphered in less than 20 minutes or so (which they also probably expected) and inevitably results in lots of geeks pondering applying to Google.

Sounds reasonable and gets them good exposure at the same time. There is a reason why Google is a household name. This is one more example.

Re:not that complicated

[gowen]

Nice idea, except if you've only seen the billboard, how do you know it has anything to do with Google?

Re:not that complicated

[davorg]

how do you know it has anything to do with Google?

You don't need to know that. Here's how I solved it when I first heard about it in July.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Net::DNS;

my $res = Net::DNS::Resolver->new;

my $e = '2718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699 9'
.'59574966967627724076630353547594571382178525 166427'
.'427466391932003059921817413596629043572 90033429526'
.'0595630738132328627943490763233829 8807531952510190'
.'11573834187930702154089149934 884167509244761460668';

foreach (0 .. length $e) {
my $n = substr $e, $_, 10;
my $q = $res->search("$n.com");

if ($q) {
print $n, "\n";
last;
}
}