Nicely done, Channel 9 (posted by Dr Herbie).

If I hadn't been aware of the date, I might have fallen for it.

Dr Herbie

EDIT: I (Charles) changed the title of this post.

Fun stuff.

Please tell me that your little game didn't keep anybody from non-stop slaving away on Rev9?

I don't know how to solve those formulas...

Ion Todirel said:

Can't believe it was a joke... I'm going to find you Charles

I really did not get that I found the answer in the JS file

Ion Todirel said:

mastermine said:

*snip*

I didn't bother to look, I was like "knowing the C9 devs they probably did server side validation"

I have been up so long i forgot what day it was

Post removed at user's request.

I try a couple of educated guesses, but not 9!

I had to make an Excell sheet an having k going from 1 to 50, I finally got it (though I had problems with decimals)!

I still have no clue what the first equation means though....

I put the second problem into Wolfram alpha:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+%2B+(product+((1+%2B+1/k)^3)/(1+%2B+3/k)+k%3D1+to+infinity)">http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+%2B+(product+((1+%2B+1/k)^3)/(1+%2B+3/k)+k%3D1+to+infinity)

CreamFilling512 said:

I put the second problem into Wolfram alpha:

 

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+%2B+(product+((1+%2B+1/k)^3)/(1+%2B+3/k)+k%3D1+to+infinity)">http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+%2B+(product+((1+%2B+1/k)^3)/(1+%2B+3/k)+k%3D1+to+infinity)

That was easy! Your solution is much faster than mine! Excel is not the best tool for this kind of problems, but I didn't have anything handy at the office.

Still not sure what the first equation meant...

I just guessed that if I kept hitting submit, it would eventually recognise that I'm an idiot, and give me the answer... and sure enough.

giovanni said:

I try a couple of educated guesses, but not 9!

 

I had to make an Excell sheet an having k going from 1 to 50, I finally got it (though I had problems with decimals)!

 

I still have no clue what the first equation means though....

It's the standard Church encoding of the natural numbers into pure lambda calculus.  If you've been exposed to it it's definitely easier than the other problem, since you just need to be familiar with the encoding, not actually solve anything.   =)

Nicely done.

La Bomba said:

Nicely done.

My first answer way 5 then 8 then I hit 9... took me 10mins....  very funny!      Was beginning to feel very stupid

La Bomba said:

Nicely done.

double post

Kryptos said:

La Bomba said:

*snip*

My first answer way 5 then 8 then I hit 9... took me 10mins....  very funny!      Was beginning to feel very stupid

Yes, my first guesses were actually lower than 9 because I thought that k at the denominator would drive the multyplying factor to 1 much faster.

contextfree said:

giovanni said:

*snip*

It's the standard Church encoding of the natural numbers into pure lambda calculus.  If you've been exposed to it it's definitely easier than the other problem, since you just need to be familiar with the encoding, not actually solve anything.   =)

If I have ever been exposed to it, my memory definitely removed it very well.

Thanks for the link, very instructive!

Edit: That was brilliant Charles