Slashdot Mirror
The 23 Toughest Math Questions
coondoggie sends in a Network World post that begins "It sounds like a math phobic's worst nightmare or perhaps Good Will Hunting for the ages. Those wacky folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have put out a research request it calls Mathematical Challenges, that has the mighty goal of 'dramatically revolutionizing mathematics and thereby strengthening DoD's scientific and technological capabilities.' The challenges are in fact 23 questions that, if answered, would offer a high potential for major mathematical breakthroughs, DARPA said." Some of the questions overlap with the Millennium Prize Problems of the Clay Mathematics Institute, which each carry a $1M prize.
42
Does anyone else here feel like we're being asking us to do someone else's math homework for them?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
How did the mathematician solve for constipation?
He worked it out with his pencil!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Or are we not as smart as we say we are?
Maybe you not smart. Me think good.
This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
Dude, this question is pretty irrelevant, I mean, when would a situation like that ever arise?
Why?
"Because calculators are a pain in the ass."
What ads? Or are you some sort of IE user?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
luckily they encoded the file with ASCII so Linux users can decode it with ...
strings DARPA-BAA-08-65.doc | less
Not as much as using logs.
2+3=5
Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Huh... I just figured out a neat, elegant solution to #17, but there's not quite enough space in this margin to fit it in...
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
Surely there are enough nerds on slashdot to figure these out. Or are we not as smart as we say we are?
You must be new here.
My blog
77 is better. You get 8 more.
Oooh, I remember that one. If a train leaves Chicago at 8:30 headed for Denver traveling at 45 MPH, and at 8:45 it's parent company declares bankruptcy because Congress refused to bail out the bank that owned a controlling stake in them, and it's going the wrong direction due to a glitch in one of the two data centers that handle the entire nations routing, and the train derails in Pennsylvania at 9:00 due to track damage that was never repaired from the last hurricane, killing most of the people on board, where do they bury the survivors?
I can't believe they left that off the list!
Now I know what to do this evening.
The best I've heard is:
If Carol has 5 oranges, and
Ted has 7 apples, and
Sue has 3 bananas, then
(wait for it)....
How many nuts does Bill have?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Especially as your user name 'the donger' is a little trickier than that of Mr. C. R. Culver at christopherculver.com. I wonder how quickly they'll find him...
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Personally, I think a more useful and trickier math question is 'You have $2.17 and the 6-pack of beer costs $7.99, how do you buy the beer?' That answer has to be worth a 1 million dollars, or at least $5.82.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
For any result greater than 3 the answer is 'A suffusion of yellow'
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
We need things that make us go!
Can you make us go?
Then we strong. And smart! *huhuhuhuhu*
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Ok, first you invest that money in the stock market...nevermind.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
Yeah right, Pierre. You have no idea how much confusion your little joke is going to cause, do you?
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
So if you have ever wanted to settle the Riemann Hypothesis, which I won't begin to describe but it is one of the great unanswered questions in math history, experts say. Or perhaps you've always had a theory about Dark Energy, which in a nutshell holds that the universe is ever-expanding, this may be your calling.
I can't really call it a sentence, because somehow it turned into two of them... and it doesn't really work like that.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
It's over 9000!