> spike wrote: ... if some clever GIMPSer were to generate the
> >perfect number that is (M37*(M37+1))/2 then express *that* number
> >in hex, I would clear off a space on my office wall for it. {8-]
Clayton Smith wrote:
> The binary expansion of this number will be p 1's followed by p-1
> 0's. In hex it would be equally boring.
Yes, of course, so it would. Many others pointed this out to me too.
Dont I feel silly. Thanks to all who replied to the flawed meme. {8^D
The problem with having a bunch of mathematicians for friends: ya cant
get away with logic errors. {8^D
So, let us devise a way to express the Perfect number corresponding with
M3021377 (does it have a name? Let me call it *P*M3023177) in some
large
enough base to keep *P*M3021377 to about 8 pages or less if printed in
2 point font. It would be impressive if we could devise a way to print
out
100 different symbols so that it we could have it in base 100.
Imagine pointing out to your coworkers: this is the 1s column, next to
it
the 100s, then the 10,000s column... Unfortunately, I dont think there
are that many printable ASCII characters, if one stays in a single font,
which disallows jumping back and forth between Geneva and Greek
characters, for instance.
On second thought, maybe it is good to use base 62, with 0-9 doing the
usual task, A-Z representing 10-35 and a-z representing 36-61. It would
require only about 12% more symbols to express *P*M3021377
in base 62 as it would to express M3021377 in base 10, so it
would take about 7 pages in 2 point.
Then yahoos could search for their name in *P*M3021377, and such as
that, and attach cosmic significance to their finds, etc. {8^D
Have we any code gurus that can help us out here? spike
________________________________________________________________
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
