11mo ago

xkcd #2966: Exam Numbers

xkcd.com

Exam Numbers

alt text:

Calligraphy exam: Write down the number 37, spelled out, nicely.

explananation: https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2966:_Exam_Numbers

25 comments

My dad is a retired Math professor.
The laughter had around this started at Cosmology, then erupted at Game theory and he couldn't breathe after the last one.
This is probably one of his most clever comics.
For the final answer, I guess Big Omega, unless you don't count infinities in which case my answer is getting up and arguing with the professor because "the number of times I can recursively write TREE(TREE(TREE... is just as arbitrary as declaring a biggest theoretical number and assigning it a new symbol.
- Of course it includes infinities, and when was the last time you saw a postgrad exam whose answers didn't include an argument with the professor?
  
  "How well you can irl debate me bro on the exam room floor will account for 50% of your final grade."
- That's actually the correct answer. If you don't get angry and start an argument, you fail.
- The biggest number that can be defined in fewer than twenty words.
- In fact the answer was a series of definitions of new biggest numbers, and you only defined one, instead of defining it, using it for its value of trees, then using that new term for more trees.
- "The largest non-impossible ordinal that is less than the number of infinities there are."
- The set of real numbers between 0 & 1 is larger than any countable infinity.
  
  Yass baby compare infinites to me harder
Man, I remember getting the kindergarten question at a point where my older brother had already told me that you can just add more digits and it always gets bigger.
I was so angry at that question, because what the hell do you want me to do here? I think, I ended up just cramming as many 9s into the box as I could, but that question is almost philosophical.
Clearly, I'm able to think of an even larger number by cramming one more 9 into there. So, what I've written down is always wrong. It is never the largest number that I'm actually able to think of. I'm telling you, I got forced into this life of lies and crime at a young age.
- the real answer is n+1
The game theory one is easy. Put down 999,999,999,999 factorial. Then everyone got it wrong, and the curve will reflect that.
- Basically, write down the biggest number you can think of
  
  Only if it's "10 more" in the sense that anything bigger than that is also accepted. If you need to hit 57, because the average is 47, then yeah, good luck.
- That's why it's always between 1 and 100. Never seen one without an upper and lower bound.
  
  Write NaN to destroy your classmates
- Joke is on you, I wrote Tree(Tree(3))
  
  My strategy is still working, though, and you've now (all but) guaranteed that my answer is the closest to the correct answer.
2 is pretty big. Oh, or π! That's probably the biggest number I've seen this month.
- 0
  is bigger than
  1
  but my
  2
  is bigger than yours
  
  draw a picture of the galaxy with a giant 1 going through it. that's pretty reasonable.
1 x ∞
Simplest way to take a shot at the biggest number without getting into some weird multiple multipliers of infinity.

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