mixing class

:D

John Cage: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/cage_j.html

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In 1952, David Tudor sat down in front of a piano for four minutes and thirty-three seconds and did nothing. The piece 4’33’’ written by John Cage, is possibly the most famous and imortant piece in twentieth century avant-garde. 4’33’’ was a distillation of years of working with found sound, noise, and alternative instruments. In one short piece, Cage broke from the history of classical composition and proposed that the primary act of musical performance was not making music, but listening.

Ignorance is bliss…no wonder I’m a happy camper most of the time.

that reminds me of a riddle. I can’t tell it here (everyone would get it given the context), but maybe you could pull it on a friend. It is one of those long “ask me a billion yes/no questions” riddles.

The setup:

"This is an old riddle. A man was driving down the road. He turns on the radio. He pulls over his car, and shoots himself."

All the crap you gotta figure out by yes/no questions, aka the answer:

The guy just left his house after shooting his wife. He is a DJ, and had left a record on to cover himself. He heard it skipping when he turned on the radio. He knew his cover was blown, and killed himself.

enjoy.

fish

BTW, I got tons of these. Want another to actually figure out, ask me try one in the general discussion board.

Quote (nergle @ Feb. 01 2005,20:25)
OK, here's one for you Fish, and all the rest of you brainboxes out there. :)

In the following series of numbers, which is the odd one out?

1,3,5,8,9,12,17,21,22,25,27,30.

Ali

oh man, everybody knows the answer to that one... :p

my first reaction is that 1 is the odd 1 out. duh.


But if that isn’t the answer, well, let me think.

increases:

1,2,3,1,3,5,4,1,3,2,3

uh… I’m going with my first answer. If it isn’t right, I’ll let some math guy build on my work.

fish

But we know that there is an infinite number of functions that could generate that sequence as the first part, and likewise there is an infinite number of functions that could generate that sequence minus one of the numbers as the first part, so that each and every number in the sequence could be the “odd one out.”

:D

But, I have a feeling this isn’t a math question…I’m still thinking.

me too

nergle, I don’t know the proof offhand, but Tom is definitely correct. Don’t make me get out my number theory book … :wink:

Some funny things have come up in the past, with tests like this. The usual presumption is that the authors of the test know the most elegant generator for the sequence. But time after time, some genius comes along and shows a more elegant one, resulting in a different answer. This is why geniuses often don’t test well. I get good scores on tests, so there’s no danger of me being a genius. :wink: I couldn’t see any pattern in that sequence, and I suspect that even if you tossed the ringer out I’d still have a hard time.

How long are you going to wait before you give the answer?

There’s 12 numbers in the series.

Food for thought…
12 Months
12 signs of the zodiac
12 … fill in the bank and look for one that doesn’t fit.

There’s LOTS of things to look at.

Like I said, I don’t think this is a math problem.

What is ONE math formula which will give the answer, minus one, if it’s math and there are any number of formulas what will poduce this?

Quote (nergle @ Feb. 02 2005,16:43)
But we know that there is an infinite number of functions that could generate that sequence as the first part


And Tom, your proof of that statement is......?

:cool:

Anyway, I never claimed it was a sequence, the word I used was "series". :D

Ali
OK, what's the difference between a sequence and a series? Or did you mean perhaps that it is a set? :)

The proof is easy - use "mathematical induction" (misnamed "induction," of course, but I teach logic and not math, so we'll let that one slide...) - start with a function that generates a sequence that repeats the intervals between the given numbers, then a function that repeats the intervals +1, then +2, and so on - each function differs from all others so generated, and there is an infinite number of integers, so an infinite number of such functions.

Mind you, I'm no mathematician, so I probably have used the wrong terms here, but you get the idea...

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/math-ind.htm
:)

Off-Off Topic…you guys ever read about computer generated “Random” numbers? It is real interesting. They are not as “random” as you might think!

TG