SE23.com - The Official Forum for Forest Hill & Honor Oak, London SE23
Online since 2002   11,000+ members   72,000+ posts

Home | SE23 Topics | Businesses & Services | Wider Topics | Offered/Wanted/Lost/Found | About SE23.com | Advertising | Contact | |
 Armstrong & Co Solicitors



Post Reply  Post Topic 
Number Theory
Author Message
Ooperlooper


Posts: 104
Joined: Jun 2006
Post: #1
05-11-2007 08:12 PM

Not exactly 'six degrees of separation', but on a mathematically similar note, have you ever passed on an email petition of the type that goes something like...

Quote:
>Dear all,
>The Brazilian congress is now voting on a project that
>will reduce the Amazon forest to 50% of its size. It
>will take 1 MINUTE to read this, but PLEASE put your
>names on the list and forward this on as instructed
>below.

(blah...blah...blah)

>Please copy (cut & paste) the entire text into a 'new
>e-mail', put your complete name in the list below, and
>send to everyone you know.
>If you are the 400th person to sign please send a copy
>to
>fsaviolo@openlink.com.br
>Thank you for your help:
>01 - Fernanda de Souza Saviolo - Rio de Janeiro - RJ
>02 - Nara Maria de Souza - Rio de Janeiro - RJ -
>03 - Julio Cesar Fraga Viana - Rio de Janeiro - RJ-
>04 - Monica Grotkowsky Brotto -Sao Paulo - SP -
>05 - Mauricio Grotkowsky Br! otto - Sao Paulo -

...etc


If so, chew on this for a minute:

Imagine, for example, that the first person sends the message on to ten people, and then let's say that two of the ten then pass it on to another ten each, and two out of each ten sucessfully pass it on to another two out of ten, and so on and so on.

The total number of names collected on all the resulting lists combined would be:
1 + 2 = 3
...+4 = 7
...+8 = 15
...+16 = 31
...+32 = 63
...+64 = 127
...+128 = 255
...+256 = 511
.............and so on. You would end up with 80200 names on the lists in this example. So far so good. Might make fsaviolo@openlink.com.br choke on his/her hamburger a little.

However, the plan rather loses its beef when you consider this...

Total number of lists in circulation:
1x2 = 2
...x2 = 4
...x2 = 8
...x2 = 16
...x2 = 32
...x2 = 64
...x2 = 128
...x2 = 256
...x2 = 512
...x2 = 1024
...x2 = 2048
...x2 = 4096
...x2 = 8192
...x2 = 16384
...x2 = 32768
...x2 = 65536
...x2 = 131072
...x2 = 262144
...x2 = 524288
...x2 = 1048575
................over a million already and there are still 381 "x2"s to go.

In fact, the final number of lists is about:
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000
That's 10 with 120 zeros.

To put that in perspective, there are only about:
'10 with 87 zeros' particles in the Universe.

Imagine how long it's going to take fsaviolo@openlink.com.br to clear his/her inbox.

A better method would be to make a website at which people could add their name to a list.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Sherwood


Posts: 1,412
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #2
05-11-2007 08:38 PM

Ooperlooper,

It is probably intended to clog up the Internet!

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Ooperlooper


Posts: 104
Joined: Jun 2006
Post: #3
06-11-2007 07:14 PM

This post got moved across from the "Linda Barker and other celeb types in the area" thread in the "se23" section, by the way, for those of thinking I've got completely loopy.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
bigjulie


Posts: 68
Joined: Apr 2005
Post: #4
06-11-2007 09:15 PM

We did wonder Ooper. We did wonder.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Ooperlooper


Posts: 104
Joined: Jun 2006
Post: #5
10-11-2007 12:52 PM

In response to the question by Roz on the 'Who is in HOP' thread, I believe there's a pretty simple reason why buses have a tendency to all come in bunches rather than remain evenly spaced.

Say there are a series of buses, evenly spaced, called A, B, C, etc.

As soon as one of them, say B, get a bit delayed for some reason (e.g. by traffic or having to pick up/let off more passengers) there will start to be a larger gap between it and the preceding bus, A.

The larger the gap, the more passengers will tend to be waiting at the next stop and the more time it will take to let them on.

At the same time, because bus B is making slower progress, the gap between it and bus C gets shorter, and resultingly bus C has fewer passengers to pick up, so goes even faster.

Pretty soon bus C catches up with Bus B.

I reckon it's to avoid this happening that buses sometimes seem to stop and wait for a few minutes for no apparent reason half way around their route.

The other day I was on a 176 and I overheard a conversation between the driver and some sort of supervisor, in which the supervisor was telling the driver off for going too fast and arriving at that stop two minutes (seemed a tad on the pedantic side, if you ask me) too early, meaning he'd have to wait two minutes before setting off.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
RussB


Posts: 15
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #6
10-11-2007 01:52 PM

The postcode SE23 has some good numerology associated with it itself, assuming you're a fan of books such as The Illuminatus Trilogy, Dark Tower and The Hitchhiker's Guide...

For Illuminatus fans there's obviously the 23 in SE23. And E is the fifth letter of the alphabet (2+3=5). Also if you take a mirror image of the letters S and E you get 2 and 3 - 23 again. fnord

For Dark Tower fans the letter S is the 19th letter of the alphabet.

Finally 19 plus 23 is 42 - the ultimate answer from Hitchhiker's Guide.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Ooperlooper


Posts: 104
Joined: Jun 2006
Post: #7
12-11-2007 10:43 PM

I once spent most of a 185 bus journey to central London watching traffic in the oncoming lane, trying to work out whether bus lanes or car lanes carried more people.

I think I estimated something like 50 people on a rush hour bus and about 1.25 people per car, then counted average number of cars that passed per bus, and it was somehthing like 25.

So to my surprise, the bus lanes won. The bus lane, despite seeming to be pretty empty most of the time, actually was shifting more people than the congested car lane.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
roz


Posts: 1,796
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #8
12-11-2007 11:01 PM

[quote=Ooperlooper]
I once spent most of a 185 bus journey to central London watching traffic in the oncoming lane, trying to work out whether bus lanes or car lanes carried more people.

Ooperlooper, you lead an exciting life.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
PVP


Posts: 271
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #9
13-11-2007 09:34 AM

Interesting life? Maybe Ooperlooper's brain is just more awake than most other peoples!

I was people watching coming home one evening from LB last week (couldn't even blag a London Lite) and was surprised at the amount of people with headphones in, glazed over staring into the middle of nothing. In itself, not too remarkable; I would have thought reading is more interesting just listening to music. What I didn't expect was how many of the headphone people were actually travelling with someone else, and both parties were plugged in and zoned out.

Long live the art of conversation.

And I do own an ipod.

And I'm not BaggyDave.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Ooperlooper


Posts: 104
Joined: Jun 2006
Post: #10
13-11-2007 09:43 PM

7 reasons why books are better than iPods:

1. You can't learn much from an iPod (except from a very narrow range of podcasts), but there's almost no topic that you can't get a book about. If you read something informative while you commute, and you commute for 2 hours a day/230 working days a year, that's equivalent to over 12 weeks of 9 to 5 study - think what you'll learn.
2. With a book, you can easily skip to the bits interesting to you.
3. Books don't need to be plugged in and recharged, and don't break down.
4. Books don't annoy other people on the train.
5. No-one ever got mugged for a book.
6. Books are cool.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
shzl400


Posts: 729
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #11
13-11-2007 10:50 PM

Ooperlooper wrote:
7 reasons why books are better than iPods:

1. You can't learn much from an iPod (except from a very narrow range of podcasts), but there's almost no topic that you can't get a book about. If you read something informative while you commute, and you commute for 2 hours a day/230 working days a year, that's equivalent to over 12 weeks of 9 to 5 study - think what you'll learn.
2. With a book, you can easily skip to the bits interesting to you.
3. Books don't need to be plugged in and recharged, and don't break down.
4. Books don't annoy other people on the train.
5. No-one ever got mugged for a book.
6. Books are cool.


And they're even better when you don't have to pay for them! Roll on 11th December .....

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
AMFM


Posts: 306
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #12
14-11-2007 09:47 AM

What's the 7th reason?!

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
robwinton


Posts: 335
Joined: Jun 2006
Post: #13
14-11-2007 09:56 AM

AMFM wrote:
What's the 7th reason?!


they teach you to read, but not to count!

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
PVP


Posts: 271
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #14
14-11-2007 10:05 AM

Did anything ever come of the geek club?

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Ooperlooper


Posts: 104
Joined: Jun 2006
Post: #15
14-11-2007 08:11 PM

7. Books are better for hiding behind when you have embarrasingly miscounted your reasons.

11th December?

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
RussB


Posts: 15
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #16
14-11-2007 09:52 PM

Geek club? Do tell...

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
PVP


Posts: 271
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #17
15-11-2007 10:43 AM

Someone was asking about venues a while back, some geeky activity like Warhammer. There was a very positive response from se23.com readers!

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
shzl400


Posts: 729
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #18
15-11-2007 10:46 AM

Ooperlooper wrote:
11th December?


The supposed date for re-opening of FH library.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Cellar Door


Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #19
12-06-2009 02:19 PM

RussB wrote:
The postcode SE23 has some good numerology associated with it...if you take a mirror image of the letters S and E you get 2 and 3 - 23 again.

I've been rattling around in the lost parts of SE23.com Forum and found this lovely piece that I thought I'd dust off and show again.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Snazy


Posts: 1,516
Joined: Jan 2008
Post: #20
13-06-2009 10:29 AM

Just out of interest, in reply to the OP (this one anyway(
Its called email harvesting.

Please please dont ever forward these things on. No matter how sweet and sincere they seem, the end game is to harvest thousands, if not millions of valid email addresses to add you to mailing lists for internet drugs, shall we say body enhancement and all sorts of other junk that clutters up your inbox.

Thats what the "If you are the 400th person to sign please send a copy to fsaviolo@openlink.com.br" is all about.

They get one need little email that their software will lift all the email addresses from, and add you to the lists, that half the time the sell on.

There is no "poor fsaviolo" at the end of this email. Just money and junk mail.

So PLEASE.... when you get these sweet little ditties, "smile", sob stories and other such things asking you to forward them on, do your friends a favour and DONT!

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply

Friends of Blythe Hill Fields