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Ponder This

September 2014

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Ponder This Challenge:

Let b = (2^3^4^5) / (e^n), otherwise stated as "two to the power of (three to the power of (4 to the power of 5)) over e to the nth power", where n is an integer such that
1 < b < e.
Find b, with an accuracy of 10 decimal digits.

Update (9/11): There is a rather elegant way to solve this problem. We've added a star to solvers who found it.


We will post the names of those who submit a correct, original solution! If you don't want your name posted then please include such a statement in your submission!

We invite visitors to our website to submit an elegant solution. Send your submission to the ponder@il.ibm.com.

If you have any problems you think we might enjoy, please send them in. All replies should be sent to: ponder@il.ibm.com

  

Challenge: 09/01/2014 @ 12:00 PM EST
Solution: 10/01/2014 @ 12:00 PM EST
List Updated: 09/18/2014 @ 12:00 PM EST

People who answered correctly:

Dan Dima (08/29/2014 03:57 PM EDT)
Dezhi Zhao (08/31/2014 04:42 AM EDT)
*Radu-Alexandru Todor (09/01/2014 07:27 AM EDT)
Daniel Bitin (08/31/2014 10:04 AM EDT)
Joaquim Neves Carrapa (08/31/2014 11:31 AM EDT)
Guangzhong Sun (09/01/2014 10:08 AM EDT)
avid Brink (09/01/2014 10:50 AM EDT)
Andreas Stiller (09/01/2014 12:51 PM EDT)
*Oleg Vlasii (09/01/2014 02:42 PM EDT)
Albert Stadler (09/01/2014 02:42 PM EDT)
Sumeet Katariya (09/01/2014 04:19 PM EDT)
Florian Fischer 09/01/2014 04:28 PM( EDT)
James Dow Allen (09/01/2014 08:33 PM EDT)
Joseph DeVincentis (09/01/2014 09:16 PM EDT)
John Snyder (09/01/2014 09:29 PM EDT)
Allen Sirolly (09/01/2014 09:41 PM EDT)
Vladimir Milovanovic (09/01/2014 11:58 PM EDT)
Harold Gutch (09/02/2014 12:04 AM EDT)
Addison Fischer (09/02/2014 12:43 AM EDT)
Reiner Martin (09/02/2014 01:18 AM EDT)
Robbie Gibson (09/02/2014 07:38 AM EDT)
Benjamin Phillabaum (09/02/2014 07:50 AM EDT)
Arthur Breitman (09/02/2014 07:55 AM EDT)
José Eduardo Gaboardi de Carvalho (09/02/2014 09:37 AM EDT)
Armin Krauss (09/02/2014 09:56 AM EDT)
*Aviv Nisgav (09/02/2014 10:00 AM EDT)
Gilles-Philippe Paillé (09/02/2014 10:52 AM EDT)
Serge Batalov (09/02/2014 12:14 PM EDT)
David Dodson & Donald Dodson (09/02/2014 12:43 PM EDT)
Sean Egan (09/02/2014 12:49 PM EDT)
John Tromp (09/02/2014 03:15 PM EDT)
Hugo Pfoertner (09/02/2014 03:21 PM EDT)
Mathias Schenker (09/02/2014 03:26 PM EDT)
Todd Will (09/02/2014 03:29 PM EDT)
Lorenz Reichel (09/02/2014 03:56 PM EDT)
Tim Lewis (09/02/2014 05:37 PM EDT)
Andrea Andenna (09/02/2014 05:50 PM EDT)
Antoine Comeau (09/02/2014 07:15 PM EDT)
Ellen Liu (09/02/2014 08:19 PM EDT)
Olivier Mercier (09/02/2014 08:25 PM EDT)
Mark Mixer (09/02/2014 08:46 PM EDT)
Rogerio Ponce da Silva (09/02/2014 09:29 PM EDT)
Chris Shannon (09/02/2014 11:50 PM EDT)
Liubing Yu (09/02/2014 11:34 PM EDT)
Harald Bögeholz (09/03/2014 01:47 AM EDT)
Hyung Sik Hwang (09/03/2014 02:53 AM EDT)
Richard Gosiorovsky (09/03/2014 03:15 AM EDT)
Gurvan Lullien (09/03/2014 04:08 AM EDT)
Tamir Ganor & Shouky Dan (09/03/2014 08:02 AM EDT)
Paulo Sousa (09/03/2014 08:58 AM EDT)
Zhao Yu Dong (09/03/2014 09:40 AM EDT)
Philip Kinlen (09/03/2014 10:17 AM EDT)
Vladimir Sedach (09/03/2014 01:40 PM EDT)
Tim Joseph Clark (09/03/2014 03:10 PM EDT)
Eliott Suits (09/03/2014 04:03 PM EDT)
Cynthia Beauchemin (09/03/2014 04:57 PM EDT)
David Greer (09/03/2014 06:56 PM EDT)
Tanner Swett (09/03/2014 08:37 PM EDT)
Abhinav Kumar (09/03/2014 10:40 PM EDT)
Hannes Schenck (09/04/2014 07:26 AM EDT)
Stéphane Higueret (09/04/2014 08:39 AM EDT)
Benjamin Brumfield (09/04/2014 03:53 PM EDT)
Jong Wook Kim (09/04/2014 04:28 PM EDT)
Kan Shen (09/04/2014 05:30 PM EDT)
*Viktor Chayko & Aliaksei Vaidzelevich (09/05/2014 02:12 AM EDT)
Graham Hemsley (09/05/2014 08:29 AM EDT)
Amedeo Stracqualursi (09/05/2014 09:53 AM EDT)
Victor Chang (09/05/2014 06:52 PM EDT)
Roger Duthie (09/06/2014 06:12 AM EDT)
Martin Thiim (09/06/2014 07:04 AM EDT)
Ranjith Gaddam & Mahesh Dhabade (09/06/2014 09:30 AM EDT)
Anoop Ghanwani (09/07/2014 09:09 AM EDT)
Alex Schuy (09/07/2014 10:56 AM EDT)
Motty Porat (09/07/2014 02:02 PM EDT)
Antonio García Astudillo (09/07/2014 08:21 PM EDT)
Ken Meehan (09/07/2014 09:05 PM EDT)
William Shaw (09/08/2014 02:51 AM EDT)
Peter Gerritson (09/08/2014 06:41 PM EDT)
Ricky Zhou (09/08/2014 05:14 PM EDT)
Arthur Vause (09/09/2014 02:06 AM EDT)
Christian Blatter (09/09/2014 03:09 AM EDT)
*Misha Berlinkov (09/09/2014 03:23 AM EDT)
Dieter Beckerle (09/09/2014 10:29 AM EDT)
Hakan Summakoglu (09/09/2014 01:16 PM EDT)
Hamidreza Bidar (09/09/2014 09:14 PM EDT)
Emir Haleva (09/10/2014 04:04 AM EDT)
Emilio Del Tessandoro (09/10/2014 07:22 AM EDT)
*Guillaume Bioche (09/10/2014 04:36 PM EDT)
Eric Ng (09/11/2014 10:28 AM EDT)
Anders Bisbjerg Madsen (09/11/2014 01:39 PM EDT)
Michel Hannoyer (09/11/2014 02:47 PM EDT)
Michael Liepelt ( 09/12/2014 11:51 AM EDT)
*Heyan Wu (09/14/2014 12:19 AM EDT)
Sergey Koposov (09/14/2014 11:42 AM EDT)
Christopher Edward Marks (09/14/2014 12:10 PM EDT)
Joe Klobusicky (09/14/2014 03:14 PM EDT)
Ricardas Svarplis (09/15/2014 02:56 AM EDT)
Daniel Suen (09/15/2014 03:41 PM EDT)
Gil Citro (09/15/2014 03:48 PM EDT)
Roll (09/16/2014 08:45 AM EDT)
Huikang Yi (09/16/2014 09:12 AM EDT)
*Harald Bögeholz (09/16/2014 10:47 AM EDT)
Vanio Beccaccioli (09/16/2014 01:52 PM EDT)
Frank Schoeps (09/16/2014 02:03 PM EDT)
Alessandro Marzo (09/16/2014 04:31 PM EDT)
Ross Lippert (09/17/2014 12:51 PM EDT)
Don Ryan (09/17/2014 09:39 PM EDT)
Koszó Norbert (09/18/2014 04:35 AM EDT)
*Ehud Schreiber (09/18/2014 08:10 AM EDT)
Harish Cherukuri (09/19/2014 05:43 AM EDT)
Tim Nordenfur (09/19/2014 07:39 AM EDT)
Jan Fricke (09/19/2014 09:13 PM EDT)
*Yasodhar Patnaik (09/19/2014 09:29 PM EDT)
Michael Rosola (09/20/2014 09:46 AM EDT)
Boris Rakus (09/20/2014 11:57 AM EDT)
*Paul McKenney (09/20/2014 11:58 AM EDT)
William Kang (09/21/2014 09:54 AM EDT)
Jose Coelho (09/21/2014 12:07 PM EDT)
Kipp Johnson (09/21/2014 04:53 PM EDT)
Jaesung Son (09/21/2014 07:39 PM EDT)
Daniel König (09/23/2014 10:02 AM EDT)
*Ali Khodabakhsh (09/23/2014 10:32 AM EDT)
Bradley Sherman (09/23/2014 11:19 AM EDT)
Yoav Kaempfer (09/23/2014 04:19 PM EDT)
Phil Benamy (09/23/2014 10:58 PM EDT)
Denys Kopiychenko (09/24/2014 05:34 AM EDT)
Gale Greenlee (09/24/2014 01:54 PM EDT)
Erik Hostens (09/26/2014 01:45 AM EDT)
Eric Harley (09/26/2014 08:40 AM EDT)
William Jung (09/29/2014 07:46 PM EDT)
Per Lundberg (09/30/2014 04:38 AM EDT)
*David Vainapel (09/27/2014 07:25 AM EDT)
Bernard Coudry (09/28/2014 03:59 AM EDT)
June Kang (09/28/2014 10:54 AM EDT)
Seung Hwan (Sonny) An (09/28/2014 11:11 AM EDT)
SeongKweon Hong (09/28/2014 01:16 PM EDT)
Carrie Oh (09/28/2014 04:44 PM EDT)
Kwonil Kobe Ko (09/28/2014 05:25 PM EDT)
Oskar Sigvardsson (09/29/2014 11:51 AM EDT)
Angel Mancebo (09/30/2014 03:14 PM EDT)
Konstantin Dzhigardzhyan (09/30/2014 03:57 PM EDT)
Karim Djaidja (10/01/2014 07:15 AM EDT)


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