Presenting...
May. 29th, 2004 05:00 pmToday at math practice the topic of last year's Super Relay came up. We tried to tell the story, and we got some of it, but we missed most. And so I decided to look through my chat logs to find an actual written account of it. I found four: the version I told to Mickey, the version I told to Nick, the version I told to Anna, and the version I told to kokomox28, whoever that may be.
Anyway, I think this deserves to be in my LJ, regardless of when it happened, as it's much easier for me to find things in my LJ than it is in my chat logs. I think. Whatever.
Here's the combined version:
Now Rajesh is in the center. He's got a correct stream on his left side, but on his right... well, it's all going fine until Hyungmin[0] messes it up. He passes the wrong answer to Eve, who figures out the "right" answer, and passes that to Ben. Ben then screws it up further, and passes me 0. Using this 0, I calculate 12/5, and pass this to Fan. Then I realize I messed up, and pass 144/5. But meanwhile, Ben is going over his answer again, and this time he comes up with 1, which he passes. Now, 1 is a really nasty to number to pass me. Firstly because it means there are two solutions (actually, this is not true; there is still only one solution. However, I didn't realize that at the time), and secondly because they're both really weird irrationals. I pass these to Fan, who immediately rejects them (yeah, we kind of broke the "no passing backward" rule). Now this means Fan is still going by that 144/5 from earlier. However, what I don't realize is, Fan doesn't like that 144/5 too much either - he's got to take the log base 12 of the thing - so he just drops the "/5" and uses 144 instead.
Which just happens to be the right answer.
He then passes this to Rajesh, who now has a correct answer coming in from both sides, and, of course, screws it up. :P
Now I've actually left a part out, which is that Ben actually passed me *3* answers. The first was 0, the second was 1, and the third was "We're screwed".
(Yes, that breaks the "you can only pass a number" rule. Nobody cares.)
-Sniffnoy
[0]Actually I recall hearing later that it was actually not Hyungmin who messed up initially. However, this revision is not in any of my 4 written accounts, and so I have not included it here, especially because I don't remember who *did* mess up. If anybody reading this knows what really did happen, please correct me.
--
Life is a shopping bag that checks your spelling, is laced with
vodka and glows with an eerie green light.
Anyway, I think this deserves to be in my LJ, regardless of when it happened, as it's much easier for me to find things in my LJ than it is in my chat logs. I think. Whatever.
Here's the combined version:
Now Rajesh is in the center. He's got a correct stream on his left side, but on his right... well, it's all going fine until Hyungmin[0] messes it up. He passes the wrong answer to Eve, who figures out the "right" answer, and passes that to Ben. Ben then screws it up further, and passes me 0. Using this 0, I calculate 12/5, and pass this to Fan. Then I realize I messed up, and pass 144/5. But meanwhile, Ben is going over his answer again, and this time he comes up with 1, which he passes. Now, 1 is a really nasty to number to pass me. Firstly because it means there are two solutions (actually, this is not true; there is still only one solution. However, I didn't realize that at the time), and secondly because they're both really weird irrationals. I pass these to Fan, who immediately rejects them (yeah, we kind of broke the "no passing backward" rule). Now this means Fan is still going by that 144/5 from earlier. However, what I don't realize is, Fan doesn't like that 144/5 too much either - he's got to take the log base 12 of the thing - so he just drops the "/5" and uses 144 instead.
Which just happens to be the right answer.
He then passes this to Rajesh, who now has a correct answer coming in from both sides, and, of course, screws it up. :P
Now I've actually left a part out, which is that Ben actually passed me *3* answers. The first was 0, the second was 1, and the third was "We're screwed".
(Yes, that breaks the "you can only pass a number" rule. Nobody cares.)
-Sniffnoy
[0]Actually I recall hearing later that it was actually not Hyungmin who messed up initially. However, this revision is not in any of my 4 written accounts, and so I have not included it here, especially because I don't remember who *did* mess up. If anybody reading this knows what really did happen, please correct me.
--
Life is a shopping bag that checks your spelling, is laced with
vodka and glows with an eerie green light.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
