Hardest brainteaser ever?
IB
Tags:
(Senior Baboon, 245
Points)
on 11/16/11 at 12:00pm
More mathy brainteasers!
So if A^n+B^n=C^n
, we all know there are many cases for n=2 (right triangles...)
but for n>2, there are no solutions.
Prove it.
Anyone that knows anything about math/this problem: don't say anything. Just curious as to how people approach this problem/whether it causes funny arguments.





lol didnt read your last
lol didnt read your last sentence. deleted.
Are you kidding me? Who the
Are you kidding me? Who the fuck gives this at an interview? I'd punch them in the face and walk out.
After solving it of course.
Just Do It
Trivial by inspection
Trivial by inspection
I think this one may be too
I think this one may be too difficult for non-maths/cs people
I have discovered a truly
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, but it's too long for this comment box.
Don't believe everything you think.
true wasn't wile's proof like
true wasn't wile's proof like 200 pages or something, gl getting through that in an interview
HA ha ha ah ah......I'm sure
HA ha ha ah ah......I'm sure NO ONE got asked this in an interview.
The proof is like 100 pages
The proof is like 100 pages long, it's probably the most argued theorem in math, and way beyond even some PhD's .
+1 SB to Joe Monkey for
+1 SB to Joe Monkey for quoting the person who first claimed to solve this interview brainteaser.
joe_monkey wrote: I have
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, but it's too long for this comment box.
lol, well done.
Yeah, this was a social
Yeah, this was a social experiment. Didn't expect this many people to be familiar with Fermat's last theorem/wiles' proof on WSO.
And yeah, you need really advanced graduate level math to even begin understanding the proof. You have to admit, with the mathematical ineptitude displayed in some of the brain teaser threads, it wasn't that farfetched to think most people here wouldn't recognize it on sight.
This logic puzzle, on the
This logic puzzle, on the other hand, actually is very hard. It's not conceptually a brain teaser, per se, but requires really deep logical thought. You practically need to do everything based on symbolic logic.
"Three gods A, B, and C are called, in no particular order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for yes and no are da and ja, in some order. You do not know which word means which.
"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardest_Logic_Puz...
To answer your original
To answer your original questions:
http://math.stanford.edu/~lekheng/flt/wiles.pdf
Have fun!
"Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them." - Bud Fox
You have an unlimited supply
You have an unlimited supply of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. What is the greatest value you can reach such that the coins that you have chosen cannot be rearranged to equal exactly $1.00?
al865149 wrote: You have an
You have an unlimited supply of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. What is the greatest value you can reach such that the coins that you have chosen cannot be rearranged to equal exactly $1.00?
solution: imagine there is a bowl in front of you. take the bowl, your coins, and carry out the following steps:
[step 1] pick a denomination, d, that has not yet been selected. if there are no denominations left to choose from, stop. otherwise, go to step 2.
[step 2] determine the maximum number, n, of coins of denomination d that you can put in the bowl such that you cannot, even with the change in bowl from any previous steps, make change for a dollar. then, go to step 3.
[step 3] put n coins of denomination d in the bowl. then, go to step 1.
so, if i go dimes, quarters, nickels, then pennies, we get: 9 dimes + 1 quarter + 0 nickels + 4 pennies. no matter which denomination you start with, the max is $1.19
Didn't wiles present at some
I don't think it's