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Topic: Stuck: How can you guess that? (Read 22222 times) |
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TruthlessHero
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #50 on: Feb 11th, 2007, 10:01pm » |
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Oh, no, no, no, not in the least. I respect him greatly.
I honestly would like to know if you are just an avid mathematician or if you have degrees and such.
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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #51 on: Feb 11th, 2007, 10:14pm » |
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Yeah he's a pretty smart guy. I think I could take him, though. 
I suggest you check out the Who's Who? topic. There is plenty of information about most of the major contributors on this site. Many of the minor contributors also left some details about themselves so feel free to let everyone know who you are. Speaking of which, I should probably head over there soon.
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"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei
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TruthlessHero
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #52 on: Feb 11th, 2007, 10:17pm » |
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Thanks for the link, it answered my question.
I think everyone that posted in this thread put together could take him 
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Icarus
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #53 on: Feb 13th, 2007, 5:50am » |
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Actually, there are a number of people who post here who run circles around me mathematically, though I have a doctorate in the subject and some of them do not. Michael_Dagg is also a PhD, and a professional mathematician, while I make my living as an engineer. Eigenray regularly produces answers to questions that have stumped me. Ecoist has also produced many posts on subjects that escaped me, as has Pietro K.C. I could continue the list, but I doubtlessly would miss names that should be included (SWF, James Fingas, Nick H., etc).
As for my quoted comments, you can learn about those subjects in an undergraduate Abstract Algebra course. UFDs in particular are a subject that the great female mathematician Emmy Noether studied in detail.
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And e is just as cursed.
I wonder: Which is larger
When their digits are reversed? " - Anonymous
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TruthlessHero
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #54 on: Feb 13th, 2007, 6:01am » |
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Good to know. It's probably a longshot, but is "Eignenray" perhaps the author of a program called Eigenmath?
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Eigenray
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #55 on: Feb 13th, 2007, 1:44pm » |
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on Feb 13th, 2007, 6:01am, TruthlessHero wrote:| Good to know. It's probably a longshot, but is "Eignenray" perhaps the author of a program called Eigenmath? |
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Any other eigen*s out there probably have nothing to do with me. It's a standard prefix in math terminology.
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naveenreddyp
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #56 on: Feb 14th, 2007, 10:15pm » |
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the question is ...
" say yes if u think - 1
say no if u think - 2
"
answer : if answer is yes - 1
if answer is no -2
if answer is " cannot answer" its 3 !!!!
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BNC
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #57 on: Feb 15th, 2007, 1:27am » |
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on Feb 14th, 2007, 10:15pm, naveenreddyp wrote:the question is ...
" say yes if u think - 1
say no if u think - 2
"
answer : if answer is yes - 1
if answer is no -2
if answer is " cannot answer" its 3 !!!! |
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I thought "3". You didn't tell me what to say, so I chose to say "yes".
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How about supercalifragilisticexpialidociouspuzzler [Towr, 2007]
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beatsamurai
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #58 on: Feb 22nd, 2007, 9:45am » |
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Are you thinking of the number of letters in your answer?
Of course this is language dependent, but hey.
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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #59 on: Feb 22nd, 2007, 10:24am » |
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Beatsamurai, I could respond yes or no to your question and you would have no idea what number I was thinking of.
For example, if I respond "no" I could either be thinking of one and answering no or thinking of two and answering no.
If I respond "yes" the opposite would be true.
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"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei
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beatsamurai
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #60 on: Feb 22nd, 2007, 6:19pm » |
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Hrm. I think I jumped the gun on that one.
For one thing I think I may have not phrased it very well. And on top of that I'm realizing that it wouldn't work anyway heh.
My thought was to force the person to compare his number [N] to the number of letters in his yes/no answer. With the question, "Are you thinking of the number of letters in your answer?", I pictured 3 scenarios:
N=1. Answer would be 'no'.
N=3. Answer would be 'yes'.
N=2. Can't answer 'yes' or 'no' truthfully.
Unfortunately I forgot that one could truthfully answer 'no' when N=3. Ah well.
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jollytall
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #61 on: Feb 22nd, 2007, 11:49pm » |
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I still like the solution. All other solutions are also based on the logic that we have one yes, one no and the third is either I don't know, or Cannot be answered or alike. So N=2 is OK. The problem is the answer no that might work for both N=1 and N=3.
But if we improve your question a bit and say also that if both yes and no can be a true answer then you must choose yes, it might work. N=2 still remains: Cannot be answereed truthfully, while N=1 is No, N=3 is Yes.
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| « Last Edit: Feb 22nd, 2007, 11:50pm by jollytall » |
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webdreamer
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #62 on: Oct 2nd, 2007, 2:46pm » |
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I know nobody is writing about this thread anymore, but if it's possible to get some answer is it possible to twist the definition of a yes-no question?
For example, can you ask:
If you have a odd number say yes and if the number you're thinking of it's 3, say no.
Then if he was thinking of 3, he would have to say no and yes at the same, don't know or cannot answer, or something.
By the way, how does this site works? I understand it has a riddle archive besides a forum, are we suppose to post new riddles and answer the old ones in the forum?
After post: I noticed someone wrote a similar answer, but still I think this should work better...
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| « Last Edit: Oct 2nd, 2007, 2:50pm by webdreamer » |
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FiBsTeR
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #63 on: Oct 2nd, 2007, 2:49pm » |
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As the old questions have been mutilated beyond recognition, people regularly post "new" ones on the forum, although others will tell you that most of them are just old ones in disguise.
Welcome to the forum!
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| « Last Edit: Oct 2nd, 2007, 2:50pm by FiBsTeR » |
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srn437
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #64 on: Oct 2nd, 2007, 8:44pm » |
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Ask, if in logic gates 1 meant truth, 2 meant lie, and 3 was contradiction(truth and lie at the same time), and I asked you to say if pi was irrational in the logic gate of your number, would your answer be truthful? If someone already said this, which I doubt, It's because there are 3 pages.
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towr
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #65 on: Oct 2nd, 2007, 11:40pm » |
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Your conception of logic gates is baffling. It doesn't seem to make sense in the slightest.
Logic gates work on on/off (1/0) signals, not real numbers.
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mikedagr8
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #66 on: Oct 3rd, 2007, 2:30am » |
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on Oct 2nd, 2007, 11:40pm, towr wrote:
Logic gates work on on/off (1/0) signals, not real numbers. |
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It depends who you are...
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"It's not that I'm correct, it's that you're just not correct, and so; I am right." - M.P.E.
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einstein7th
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #67 on: Oct 12th, 2007, 4:05pm » |
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Gotten from a friend:
Ask him: "Is 1 divided by your number minus 2 positive?"
if 3... 1/(3-2) ==> yes.
if 1... 1/(1-2) ==> no.
if 2... 1/(2-2) ==> I don't know, 1/0 = both positive infinity and negative infinity.
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Hippo
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #68 on: Oct 13th, 2007, 2:32am » |
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[spam] Sorry for spamming ... all the solutions are based on a trick with answers yes, no, I cannot decide.
The beauty of the solution depends on how it achieves the third answer.
1) The undefined value is not nice as in that case the answer "no" fits well. Answering "No because this is not defined ... shortened to "This is not defined" is an answer with nonrequested additional information.
2) The I cannot decide as the question is too complex that nobody knows the answered yet is better but risky. What about the new progress in computing ... ?
Suppose the queried person have a time limit to consider all three computations so the number cannot be guessed according to reply time.
3) The I cannot decide and I know I will never be able to decide is the solution you cannot beat.
This is why I vote for variants of "I have roled x on the usual 6 sided dice. Is your number bigger than (7+2x)/7?"
(As was post by Paul Hammond ... who preferes coin flips to dice rolls)
Refolmulated as a single question ... Is your number minus 1 alltogether multiplied by 3.5 greater than random roll on a standard dice?
(As was post by towr ... who preferes even more powerfull random generators).
The constant 3.5 can be changed to 4 if you prefere nice numbers to symmetry ...
[edit]
4) The questions which are not well defined (following post) ... Suppose he can ask you to explain your question ... and answers according to your chosen definition ... I still vote for 3)
[/edit]
[/spam]
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| « Last Edit: Oct 13th, 2007, 12:30pm by Hippo » |
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FiBsTeR
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #69 on: Oct 13th, 2007, 7:07am » |
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The dice solution is nice, but how about something simpler:
"Is one less than your number an even natural number?"
1: "It depends/I don't know", since zero is even, but sometimes included in the set of naturals.
2: "No", since 1 is natural but odd.
3: "Yes", since 2 is natural and even.
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TruthlessHero
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #70 on: Oct 13th, 2007, 7:14am » |
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Just because we know that it's sometimes included, doesn't mean that the person answering will...But I like yours the best so far.
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FiBsTeR
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #71 on: Oct 13th, 2007, 7:52am » |
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on Oct 13th, 2007, 7:14am, TruthlessHero wrote:| Just because we know that it's sometimes included, doesn't mean that the person answering will |
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Well whenever I see problems involving asking questions to other people, I assume the other person is omniscient, or at least close enough to it to suit the needs of the problem. By that logic, our person might not know how to add/subtract/multiply/divide, but we assume he does.
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towr
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #72 on: Oct 14th, 2007, 7:06am » |
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on Oct 13th, 2007, 7:52am, FiBsTeR wrote:| Well whenever I see problems involving asking questions to other people, I assume the other person is omniscient |
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Then he'd know what concept of "natural number" you subscribe to, and could reply either yes or no 
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FiBsTeR
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #73 on: Oct 14th, 2007, 5:07pm » |
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on Oct 12th, 2007, 4:05pm, einstein7th wrote:"Is 1 divided by your number minus 2 positive?"
if 3... 1/(3-2) ==> yes.
if 1... 1/(1-2) ==> no.
if 2... 1/(2-2) ==> I don't know, 1/0 = both positive infinity and negative infinity.
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Does this work? 1/0 is not defined, so it is not positive, so the answer for this would be "No".
EDIT:
on Oct 14th, 2007, 7:06am, towr wrote:
Then he'd know what concept of "natural number" you subscribe to, and could reply either yes or no
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Well suppose I didn't consider zero to be a natural number: does that mean zero isn't a natural number? If I asked an omniscient mind whether a movie was "good", and I thought the movie was good, does that mean he/she would answer "yes"?
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| « Last Edit: Oct 14th, 2007, 5:12pm by FiBsTeR » |
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towr
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Re: Stuck: How can you guess that?
« Reply #74 on: Oct 14th, 2007, 11:37pm » |
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on Oct 14th, 2007, 5:07pm, FiBsTeR wrote:| Well suppose I didn't consider zero to be a natural number: does that mean zero isn't a natural number? |
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In your mathematical system, it wouldn't be. The question doesn't have an objective answer; you won't find the answer 'in the world'. Mathematics is a system of axioms and definitions, and so it depends on what system you work in. Of course, the same holds for every mathematical concept (addition and subtraction included).
An omniscient being has the luxury to answer a question as you mean it, rather than merely its own interpretation thereof; it unambiguously knows what you mean. It wouldn't be answering truthfully if it answered to a different meaning. Otherwise it could answer any question with "well, I don't know, depends on your definition of ..."
Quote:| If I asked an omniscient mind whether a movie was "good", and I thought the movie was good, does that mean he/she would answer "yes"? |
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Whether a movie is good or bad is typically an opinion, it doesn't follow from axioms or definitions.
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