the Pebblesorters will never forget the Great War of 1957, fought between Y’ha-nthlei and Y’not’ha-nthlei, over heaps of size 1957. That war finally ended when the Y’not’ha-nthleian philosopher At’gra’len’ley exhibited a heap of 103 pebbles and a heap of 19 pebbles side-by-side. So persuasive was this argument that even Y’not’ha-nthlei reluctantly conceded that it was best to stop building heaps of 1957 pebbles, at least for the time being.
Interesting potential-parallels: the argument of 103 and 19 is easy to check (multiplication) but hard to formulate (prime factorisation). Evaluating the statement by itself is in between (primality test).
Primality testing is easy in the sense that if someone discovered that factorization was that easy, they would win the Nobel Prize in Math. Which doesn’t even exist.
Right, a primality test is not hard like factorisation, but it’s harder than multiplication. Our pebblesorters are clearly somewhere between multiplication and prime testing. If a pebblesorter proved something like the AKS algorithm, they would win more than the Gödel prize!
Interesting potential-parallels: the argument of 103 and 19 is easy to check (multiplication) but hard to formulate (prime factorisation). Evaluating the statement by itself is in between (primality test).
Primality testing is easy in the sense that if someone discovered that factorization was that easy, they would win the Nobel Prize in Math. Which doesn’t even exist.
Right, a primality test is not hard like factorisation, but it’s harder than multiplication. Our pebblesorters are clearly somewhere between multiplication and prime testing. If a pebblesorter proved something like the AKS algorithm, they would win more than the Gödel prize!
Have you been watching Teen Wolf?
Nope—didn’t even know that was a TV series until I wikipediaed it just now.