5 comments

  • hwd 5 hours ago

    Strange. In the article A138563 is described as a sequence of prime numbers that contain the substring 667. But these are obviously not prime numbers. Having a look at https://oeis.org/A138563 reveals that these are simply any numbers containing the substring.

    • bombcar 15 minutes ago

      https://oeis.org/A321001 is what they wanted, obviously easy to get them confused.

      • tomtomtom777 3 hours ago

        Well, they do mention they are looking up whether it exists during the interview, so it's a forgivable mistake.

      • bombcar 4 hours ago

        https://oeis.org/ is the page, interestingly enough https://oeis.org/A000001 is not the "positive integers" - that's https://oeis.org/A000027

        • onionisafruit 5 hours ago

          I don’t know anybody who would both appreciate the fax number of the beast joke and not turn it into a conversation about 617 being the real fax number of the beast according to most manuscripts.

        • crtasm 5 hours ago

          As it doesn't seem to be linked, here is Hofstadter Q-sequence https://oeis.org/A005185

          I can't tell which of Chai Wah Wu's submissions the interviewer was referring to. https://oeis.org/search?q=Chai%20Wah%20Wu&fmt=short&sort=cre...

        • fix4fun 5 hours ago

          667 - “fax number of the beast” - that was funny ;) The thing about mathematics is that it can tickle your brain - in a creative way.

          It's becoming increasingly difficult these days, with so many things competing for your attention and "brain-deadening" you. It was a wonderful thing to be bored and play around with math. My favorite moments were the epiphany - that there is some hidden connection between math areas or something got new meaning.

          • NoSalt 3 hours ago

            I had a similar epiphany in college, somewhere amongst Calc I, II, III, DiffEq, physics, and engineering. I kept meaning to pursue it, but life got in the way and I never did. Unfortunately, I can no longer remember what that epiphany was, and I am sad.