An Anonymous Coward writes:
Mathematician John Baez presents a delightful and beautifully illustrated version of the ultimate question... http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/42.html for which the answer is 42.
Hint -- it's 2D geometry. And maybe the mice should have been bargaining with Zaphod for his brain instead of for Arthur Dent's brain.
Lots more math & physics fun on his pages, I also enjoyed http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/rolling/
Added Wikipedia link to the text '42' to explain, for the uninitiated, the HHGttG reference. --Bytram
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(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday March 13 2017, @05:38AM (5 children)
Figured out a long time ago that 6x9=42, in base 13.
So, Douglas Adams picked 13 for the base of some math? Why 13? Because it's bad luck? The answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is that it was an accident caused by bad luck.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @05:47AM
Or, per the radio play, the Question is the result of the computer after Deep Thought, which Deep Thought helped to design, called "Earth".
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 13 2017, @06:51AM
Of course the real question is: "Think of a number. Any number."
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @09:08AM (1 child)
"I may be a sorry case, but I don't write jokes in base 13." -- Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 13 2017, @06:37PM
Yup, it's like rationalizing a shrubbery or the cutting of a tree with a herring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @10:24AM
#define SIX 1+5
#define NINE 8+1
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @08:24AM (5 children)
thanks for the nice read.
I keep forgetting that string theory is loved mostly for its elegance.
I guess there's an extra reason now.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday March 13 2017, @01:51PM (4 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday March 13 2017, @04:26PM (2 children)
You could just read Baez for the Wowee Zowee emotional content. Just as you might attend a symphony without understanding every chord change and melodic variation.
Doing this consistently over years gets you to the point that you can often see it's meaningful without understanding just what the meaning is. And you get a deeling for what is significant.
That gives you a heads up if you were ever to really study any of this stuff in detail, for which you'd have to go to real textbooks. Which Baez would be happy to refer you to if you are serous about it.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday March 13 2017, @04:48PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @09:36PM
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/TWF.html [ucr.edu]
All the old columns are available for personal download. Baez is even updating them if he finds an error. And he requests readers to email him if they find an error.
(Score: 1) by Sourcery42 on Monday March 13 2017, @04:40PM
We apologise for the inconvenience. ...sorry couldn't resist another Douglas Adams joke.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday March 13 2017, @05:42PM (1 child)
...what the hell is going on with the capitalisation of this headline?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @01:57AM
The answer, according to Betteridge, is "no."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:23AM
The article says "If you try to get several regular polygons to meet snugly at a point in the plane, what's the most sides any of the polygons can have? The answer is 42."
It goes on to discuss cases of 3 regular polygons with different numbers of sides. The way they originally stated the question, 4 squares would be a valid (but not maximal) solution.
My solution to this question, as originally stated: 2 squares, and any other regular polygon (pick the side count as high as you like). Just have the point there they meed be in the middle of one of the edges on the N-gon: at that point all 3 polygons meet, the corners of two squares, and the edge of the other polygon.
Bonus solution: the limit as N=> infinity N-gon, with its corner at the corners of two squares.
Math people should be more pedantic about their specs. The content in the article is more interesting than my solutions, but it makes claims that clearly aren't true because it didn't constrain the problem well enough before claiming there solutions were the only ones.