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Australian Air Force's Recruiting Puzzle Shown To Be Unsolvable
KernelMuncher writes "Australia's Royal Air Force has been left red-faced after a job ad asked applicants to solve a complex math problem that was revealed to be unsolvable. The service posted the puzzle in a bid to attract the country's best minds to its ranks. 'If you have what it takes to be an engineer in the Air Force call the number below,' it read, above a complicated formula which candidates had to crack. But there was a slight difficulty: The problem had typos and ended up not giving potential operatives the correct contact information."
Maybe its a test of character?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It's the Kobayashi Maru!
When people pointed out two key typos, the military bosses thanked them and said they were 'exactly the kind of people they are looking for.'
"Eh, sarge, I think this war is a mistake..."
...and contact us at our secret phone number, we *really* want you.
Several potential recruits complained after getting error messages from the Wolfram web page that reduces integrals.
Your problem may be solved by means of a most ingenious proof I have, which the margin of your ad is too small to contain.
I have to go lie down now, I'm not feeling well.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
One thing I love about fresh water school of economics, not only do they claim they can write an equation describing a modern industrial economy, but solve it too.
... the only winning move is not to play.
And in particular people that know the limits of their own skill. Dunning-Kruger effect at work. People that know the limits of their own skill get help when faced with something beyond them. People that do not know these limits mess it up.
Or, the put things a little differently, perception of ability approaches infinity as actual ability approaches zero.
There's no excuse for not knowing your limits. That's why L'Hôpital's Rule was invented.
A wise person knows what they do not know. I used to interview entry level programmers. I would ask harder SQL questions until they could not provide a good answer. Usually "what is a left outer join". The best non answer was "I am not sure, it is similar to this, and I know were to look it up". The worst answer (in a valley girl voice). "It is like a regular join, except like outer.".
No wonder I kept getting a Chinese take out joint.