November 2008
<<October November December>>
Instead of computing the thousands of digits of ponderthis, we can use the following inequality to quickly verify that the first six digits are, indeed, “ponder” (frac stands for the fractional part):
frac(Log10(ponder)) ≤ frac(this*Log10 (ponder)) < frac(Log10 (ponder+1))
Out of the all permutations, only three match the condition:
ponder=504271 this=6983
ponder=813760 this=2459
ponder=835402 this=7619
ponder=813760 this=2459
ponder=835402 this=7619
Here comes the interesting part – although the expression gives three different results, in all three cases, the first four digits, translated back to letters, are “oded”.
If you have any problems you think we might enjoy, please send them in. All replies should be sent to: ponder@il.ibm.com