For the start of the semester, I have decided to give everyone a quick brain warm-up. Feel free to e-mail me your solutions (my SIUE address starts with â€Ã...“rlamoni@â€Ã,Â) I will post a reply to this message with the names (or pseudonyms if desired) of the correct submitters in a day or two or when a sufficient number of people have answered the question. At that point, I will add a new question. Each question will have a title that could be a clue or just an inside joke. ;-)
Please DO NOT reply to the thread with an answer to the problem. E-mail it instead.
To make things easier on me, please make the subject line of you answer e-mail look like this: â€Ã...“Brain warm-up Dâ€Ã,Â
What is the answer to this general-geek-knowledge based multiplication problem. For purposes of clarity all numbers should be rounded to the nearest integer before multiplying them.
The sum of any two opposite sides on a 6-sided die *
Smallest prime number greater then a dozen *
# of decimeters in a meter *
# of days in the 2100AD calendar year *
# of planets closer to the Sun then the Earth *
# of US Dollars represented by a bill with Lincoln’s face on it *
# of â€Ã...“permanentâ€Ã, Security Council members in the UN *
# of thirds of the Earth’s surface covered by ocean *
Pi *
Acceleration of gravity at sea-level in meter/sec/sec = ?
I personally think you should be graded on the number you don't have to look up on the internet :-)
Since when is the number of â€Ã...“permanentâ€Ã, Security Council members in the UN a geek question? It should be number of bytes in a gigabyte or something like that. :-)
I don't care if people lookup the answers. They might learn something. Additionally, the looking up of some answers shows knowledge of the limitations of your knowledge. I think this is a characteristic to be rewarded. The ability to say â€Ã...“I don’t knowâ€Ã, and then correct the problem is a rare one.
B.T.W.
A good source for general knowledge is WikiPedia[ http://www.wikipedia.org ]. I would not trust it for specific knowledge because few people would catch any errors but things that many people know should be correct.
A little off-topic, but wikipedia does have the correct information for a genetic algorithm last time I looked.
I originally posted some material about GAs on wikipedia, and someone else took that and did a much better job of it later, greatly expanding on what little I put up there.
The person who wrote about it obviously had a much better idea about them than I did.
Solvers:
1. Pete Lamonica (solved: 1-14-2005 10:50am)
2. tom von kercey (solved: 1-14-2005 12:05pm)
3. Jon Greathouse (solved: 1-18-2005 1:58pm)
Answer:
Sum of opposite sides of a 6-sided die = 7
Smallest prime number greater then a dozen = 13
# of decimeters in a meter = 10
# of days in the 2100AD calendar year = 365 (not a leap year because of the 100 year rule)
# of planets closer to the Sun then the Earth = 2 (Mercury & Venus)
# of US Dollars represented by a bill with Lincoln’s face on it = 5
# of â€Ã...“permanentâ€Ã, Security Council members in the UN = 5 (China, France, Russia, UK, and US)
# of thirds of the Earth’s surface covered by ocean = 2 (71% is ocean)
Pi rounded to one digit = 3
Acceleration of gravity at sea-level rounded to the nearest meter/sec/sec = 10
Product = 996450000
Hmm, I'm curious if they're just making it look like humans responding by copying phrases others have used. For example, in bozo's post, he copied, verbatim, something I said earlier in this thread.