DailyDirt: Put Your Thinking Caps On...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Mar 31st 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Working on puzzles can be fun -- but there's also a point where the puzzles can get "too hard" (eg. Millennium Prize, Hilbert's problems, etc). For those who are undaunted by a good challenge, here are a few links for your amusement.

Project Euler presents a series of challenging computational puzzles that are meant to be solved by a modestly powerful computer in about one minute. Arriving at a correct solution, on the other hand, may take much longer than a minute... [url]
The Eternity II puzzle is a game that comes with a $2 million prize (yet unclaimed). Fun for the whole family -- if your family grows exponentially and every member enjoys NP-hard problems. [url]
No one has completely figured out gravity yet, but if you have some ideas about it, send them to the Gravity Research Foundation. The first of the GRF's annual competitions for the best essays on Gravitation requested proposals for anti-gravity devices to "fight gravity" -- but they'll accept essays that discuss the Theory of Gravity more broadly now. [url]
A 12-year-old with mild autism claims to have an expanded theory of relativity and thinks that the current big bang theory needs more modifications. So now do you think you're smarter than a 5th grader? [url]
To discover more interesting puzzles and brainteasers, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: autism, eternity ii, gravity research foundation, np-hard, prize, project euler, puzzles

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Anonymous Coward, 31 Mar 2011 @ 6:14pm

I thought the big bang theory had been dismissed years ago? Well, whatever.
Anyway, the real answer to the origin of reality is simple. Everything within linear time, including linear time itself, has a start point and an end point. Furthermore, it's impossible for linear time to predate itself. As such, linear time cannot have originated from linear time.
Therefore, the origin of linearity must be nonlinear. Or, as the apostle Paul put it, "things which are seen were not made of things which do appear".
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- Anonymous Coward, 31 Mar 2011 @ 11:03pm
  
  Re:
  A curve looks linear if you look at a small enough piece. Do you think you are a significant enough piece of the universe that you can grasp the entire structure from considering your own experiences of linear time?
  
  Time isn't linear and the universe isn't linear and if you think otherwise then you are just a flatlander.
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- Billy Wenge-Murphy, 1 Apr 2011 @ 1:32am
  
  Re:
  > Anyway, the real answer to the origin of reality is simple
  
  "Oh, this should be good...."
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TechDan (profile), 31 Mar 2011 @ 6:45pm

Something seems odd
about that genius boy. I can't quite put my finger on it.

That's not to say I don't believe it. I can't wait look at some of his work in a few years. But something just doesn't sit right with me.

I'm probably just jealous.
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- Michael Ho (profile), 31 Mar 2011 @ 11:18pm
  
  Re: Something seems odd
  well, that genius boy's work still needs to be published and reviewed... so until the kid's work is actually out there for everyone to evaluate, there's not really much judgment to be made about it.
  
  And given the popularity of "string theory" and other wacky stuff in physics, if this kid is smart, he'll propose a theory that can't really be verified for hundreds of years because we don't have a supercollider big enough..... :P
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Pixelation, 31 Mar 2011 @ 7:34pm

I have an idea about gravity. Gravity sucks!
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Billy Wenge-Murphy, 1 Apr 2011 @ 1:24am

I, too, thought I had all the answers when I was 12
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