[VA] Short & Sweet Math Challenge #25 "San Valentin's Special: Weird Math"

[Valentin Albillo]

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Hi, robve:

(02-24-2021 03:42 PM)robve Wrote:  Valentin, nice result and in-depth investigation.

Thanks for your appreciation and most especially for your participation and very comprehensive results.

Quote:Sorry for this long reply:

Never mind, as far as I'm concerned the longer, the better. And this reply of mine isn't small fry, either.

Quote:As a kind suggestion and to offer some respectful constructive feedback: criticizing how we post our results is not helpful.

Could you please give the exact post number of the particular post where I did such criticism ?

Quote:Most of us don't have a lot of time to work on fun stuff. We cannot delay our posts to the end of the week, which is bad for two reasons: 1) it looks like we are just summarizing what other people already posted, and 2) it is not competitive to post our replies very late (because you hinted at some competition for working on these concoctions).

I understand the lack-of-time factor, but as for the "you hinted at some competition for working on these concoctions", that's not so. This is S&SMC #25 and if you have a look at the previous 24 (I know, I know, you don't have the time) you'll see that they've never been posited as "competitions". This one wasn't either.

Quote:If you want more participants and if you want everyone to post in a more organized way then simply do not hint at a competition and produce a Hall Of Fame outcome.

As I've just explained, I don't hint at a competition and never have, that's your own idea, not mine.

And as for the "Hall of Fame", it's a novel idea I had a few days ago (this is the very first time I've included it) and it was intended as a compliment and for showing my appreciation to those people who (like yourself) took the time and effort to post some results, *not* as a score-card or podium or something. Seeing your (over)reaction, perhaps it wasn't such a good idea after all so after posting my 5 remaining solutions (all of which do include their respective "Hall of Fame", I'll drop it for good. Or not.

Quote:It was fun to work on this, but I am not so sure I want to do this again.

It's up to you (", New York, New York."). Anyway, thanks for participating in this one, much appreciated.

Quote:Obviously, searching online or looking at other posts totally spoils the fun working on this, at least for me. All results and updates I posted are solely mine!

That final statement (with exclamation point and all) just reinforces my feeling that you're taking this humble challenge much too seriously. It is and always has been intended for longer than a decade as fun, diversion, never as a competition, that idea is of your own making, not mine. You know, this is not the IMO or Putnam Competition and I won't give you a Fields Medal either so please relax, take it easy !

Quote:Indeed, a Buffons Needle-like or Monte Carlo approach to estimate e.

Yes. And a very simple one, even simpler than Buffon's for Pi. It would be nice to come up with simple stochastic procedures to estimate other ubiquitous math constants.

Quote:Please note that I posted my initial results early and added some new results as I went back to work on the concoctions. I think that most of us approach it that way, because "aha!" moments and inspiration are not constrained to a single day or hour or even a week, [...]. We also have a day job to take care of first and foremost.

I insist, you're taking it too seriously and competitively, and re that "day job first and foremost", nobody is forcing you or expecting you to participate if you can't or won't. Think of this as solving today's paper crosswords or Sudoku: you do it when you have the time and if you feel like it. Same here.

Quote:For example, once I went back to work on this I found I misunderstood one formula, corrected my program, and produced the result that you probably looked for so that felt satisfying.

See ? That's the idea, getting satisfaction. Not stressing over a nonexistent "competitive" edge.

Quote:Also, why would you criticize posting extra code like BASIC and Python bad, when posted in addition to HP PRIME code?

Could you please give the exact post number of the particular post where I did such criticism ?

Quote:On the subject of calculators collecting dust, the first calculator I used was a HP-45 in the 80s that my Dad owned and cherished. Not sure if he still actively uses it, but he still cannot part with his HP-45!

The HP-45 is also the second HP calculator I saw and handled (the first one was a much simpler, cheaper HP-21) and I admired it immensely, utterly state-of-the-art, classy, expensive-looking (and actually !), I so badly wanted one but couldn't afford it as the young adult I was back then. And its hidden-timer functionality was awesome in the extreme (if useless, for lack of a quartz crystal) ! ... Such fond remembrances ...


Thanks for taking the time (be careful, you now: that day job ...) to let me know what you think, Dr. Robert, really much appreciated, wish more people would do that instead of holding everlasting grudges.

In the next days I'll continue to post my original solutions to the remaining 5 Concoctions (which all include their respective "Hall of Fame", sorry) and you may feel relieved to know that afterwards I won't post another S&SMC for a long, long time, if ever, so you'll have no problem in not participating.

Thanks again and best regards.
V.