At 09:22 PM 5/7/2005, you wrote:
>On Sat, 7 May 2005 19:15:58 -0500, John Nitrox <[log in to unmask]>

         Ahh, I should read this post first.  Until just now, I alway
thought a googol was 99 to the 99th power and that a googolplex was a
googol to the googol power.  Perhaps high school gossip is more accurate
now than it was in the early sixties.   I've seen some very long
derivations of pi, so anything else shouldn't surprise me much.  I've never
thought about putting a number into a search engine, but why not.  BTW,
I  thought statisticians were for the most part interested in strange
distributions, but our Feeeesh is a man for all seasons to the googolplex.

         Of late, I've had my desktop and my laptop die within a week of
each other.  It seems that making each the backup of the other wasn't such
a good idea.  Worse still, the laptop (Compaq Presario 705) wasn't even
five years old and it cracked along the hinges without having been dropped
or abused.  Now with real estate taxes pressing down upon my neck, the
compute I got two years ago which was supposed to be for editing uw-video
is now the business computer.  Oh, also a recommendation, just a few weeks
before my desktop died I got a portable hard drive, and while I didn't put
enough on it, I put enough on it so my life is less miserable than it would
have been.

         Just for a little scuba content, it's Bonaire again in September,
but until then I'll be trying to make a buck.  Why did I ever leave the my
cushy government job at the DOE?  Ahh, to have Lee Bell's job or better
still Viv's.  Well, at least I get to read about Viv's dive travels, and
that's a hint for any of you NEDs that may have been slacking off on the
dive reports.


DPTNST,


John



> >At 05:08 PM 5/7/2005, Le Poisson wrote:
> >
> >>While Bjorn graciously and generously told me that I don't need to
> >>mail it back to him, but pass it on to someone (which I already did)
> >>who might enjoy it, he made a statement to the effect that he never
> >>re-read any book because of his "photographic memory" which I
> >>immediately challenged because I have not seen the evidence of
> >>anyone who can prove "photographic memory" even though many claimed
> >>they had (including myself <G>).
>
>BTW, I copy my reply to Bjorn to YOU, offering you to send me your
>snail mail address if you are interested in that book.  The absence
>of a reply had me sending ot book to my college room=mate of 45 years
>ago who was trying to be a math major, flunked out before he had a
>chance to finish.
>
>
> >Forty-one years ago I went away to Columbia College in the City of New
>York
> >and met one of these extraordinary folks who claimed to have a
>photographic
> >memory.  George S., that should keep me from being sued, challenged us to
> >show him any page in English which we did and which he recited word for
> >word after having read it over once.  I'm not sure what is denoted or
> >implied by having a "photographic memory" but I was impressed.
>
>That's interesting.  I've never met anyone who can "photo" read anything
>remotely resembling that feat.  ALL my exams (college, grad levels) are
>open book and open notes:  which proves that photographic memory
>won't do anything for comprehension.  :-)  Half of my tree stumps
>fail the exams that were open-book, open notes.  Some of them even
>managed to guess all 10 T or F questions wrong.  That's NOT EASY.
>Such is our generation of college education.
>
> > I'll tell everyone except
> >Don what he's doing for a living now.
>
>Photo memory will help the sharks more than others.  But still, if he
>does not have the sharpness in LOGIC and analytical skills, memorizing
>a million pages won't help much.
>
> >
> >Is God fair; I think not,
>
>Erdos calls him the SF (Supereme Fascist).
>
> >but I still get to play the Feeeesh game so here
> >are my guesses, and I hope that folks who are in math don't get to enjoy
> >this too much.
> >
> >>Question 1:  What is the significance of the number 16998 ?
>
>This is the tougher of the two Q's because even with Google search,
>you can't find much about it.
> >
> >         I fiddled with this question a little and I can't find anything
> >unusual that a normal person untutored in mathematics should be able to
> >detect after an hour or two of effort.
>
>Wow!  You really took it seriously.   As I said, the question was only
>to test Bjorn's PHOTO memory.  Even math specialists won't recognize
>this one unless they remember where it came from.
>
> >
> >>Question 2:  What is the significance of the number 3,021,377 ?
>
>This one can be found EASILY on Google web search.  Just go to the
>Google WEB part and type in the number 3021377 and it'll give ONE
>of the answers in Erdos' book.  :-)
> >
> >         I don't know, but maybe this is just a really big prime number,
> >but why it should be interesting I have no idea.
>
>Yes, it is a large prime number, but that's not the significance of
>it.  Go to Google, click WEB, and search for 3021377 and you'll be
>rewarded with the "significance of this number".  :-)   It's
>significance was discovered in 1998 (about the time the Erdos book
>was published), but since then has lost some of the significance. :-)
>
>
>I don't think it should
> >be interesting because I'm sure mathematicians have figured out prime
> >numbers to one hundred or two hundred places and I just don't have access
> >to these tables.
>
>No need.
>
>If you just want to know if a number is PRIME or not, just go to this
>page and enter the number:
>
>http://www.prime-numbers.org/
>
>The answer will be instantly returned.  Today we know about certain
>prime numbers that have MILLIONS of digits and had been checked out
>by computers.
>
>I know a bunch of physicists, both experimental and
> >theoretical, and I know a couple of mathematicians, but I'm not asking
>them
> >and I'm sticking with my guess.  It's a big prime number with no special
> >significance.
>
>Bzzzzz.  Sorry, you may pick up your consolation prize of finding
>the answer in the web search I pointed you to look.  In fact, the
>number is really "microscopic" in size amoung BIG prime numbers. :-)
>
> >
> >         For a little fun here's a joke I heard a physicist tell a
> >mathematician about 40 years ago.
> >
> >A guy was walking home and looking in a store window he saw a sign that
> >"Shirts washed, starched, and ironed:  20 cents."  A week later he looked
> >in the same window and saw a sign that said, "Suits dry
> >cleaned:  $1.00."  The next week as he walked by the store front he saw a
> >sign that said, "Laundry done: 10 lbs. $1.00."  Well that did it, he
> >brought down a couple of suits, a few shirts, and about 20 pounds of
> >laundry to the store front, where he heard the man at the desk say, "Hey,
> >we don't do laundry here: we just make signs."  According to my physicist
> >friends who found this hysterically funny, this is the difference between
> >physicists and mathematicians.
>
>That is quite funny.  On cruiseships, a shirt is cleaned and ironed
>for about 4 bucks.  A T-shirt, about 2 bucks.  At the end of the
>cruise, they sometimes have a special of all the laundry you can stuff
>into a paper laundry bag for $15.  Sue and I have taken that challenge
>and did about $60 of laundry for $15.  The same laundry would probably
>have gone in a Chinese laundry for $12.  :-)
> >
> >         So maybe 3,021,377 has something to do with the know universe, or
> >maybe it's just something known to mathematics, but I'm more inclined to
> >stay with this second possibility and my original guess.  Also I apologize
> >about being so incommunicado with my friends on the list.  Also, I'm
> >working to crank up the list's posts a little bit and won't take any crap
> >from folks who don't add plenty of extras to entertain the NEDs.
>
>John, you have to keep in mind that what's a BIG number in mathematics
>is really big, sometimes with more digits than you can write in your
>life time by hand.
>
>A googol (spelled a little differently from google), is a 1 followed
>by 100 zeros.  That's supposed to be more than the number of atoms
>in the entire universe.  But that number is TINY compared to
>googleplex, a 1 followed by a googol zeros.
>
>http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/cyc/g/googol.htm
>
> >
> >         Also for Bjorn, we're going to Helle Sorensen's wedding on the
>Mon
> >(Moen) Island later this summer, and I want to quiz him about how to get
> >along with Danes.  As I understand it so far they are friendly to friends
> >of relatives, know everything about everything especially if they've had a
> >chance to study it, all speak six or more languages,
>
>I can say "I don't understand" in at least 6 languages.
>
> >all are extra good
> >looking, and none of them own automatic weapons or have more than a few
> >hundred rounds of ammo.  BK and I have bought about half a dozen travel
> >guides to Denmark, and I've been reading one book in Borders about the
> >culture shock of going to Denmark.  I sort of hope that it will be like
> >most other countries I've visited where the people are much nicer than
> >folks from the U.S. but less open and less well armed.   According to
> >Helle's intended, Dane's are unlike Americans in that they won't quiz you
> >about sex, personal finances, or make party plans with you until they know
> >your name, but he could be wrong.  Now I'm just hoping I've irritated
> >enough NEDs to get them to post something.  :-)
>
>
>John, it's amazing how TWO numbers brought you out for a long visit
>which is so rare these days.
>
>I think SE has turned into a quiet retreat for the "SE" (Seriously
>"  " -- I can't think of an appropriate word that starts with an E
>for "bored" or something).
>
>How about           Seriously   Enigmatic  !
>
>That should do it.
>
>
>La Poisson.