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Comment by camtarn | Hacker News Reader

Hah. The hypothesis is false, but the script already has that covered via loop detection... nice :)

panhard

    Auverland
    Panhard

uh oh... found a loop

panhard -> auverland -> panhard.

So far the longest trail I've found, at 25 steps, was from 'ED209' via pottery, through minerals, states of matter, knowledge, finite sets, mathematics... that's one heck of a wikitrail.

[edit] Scratch that, 'Horst link' is longer via one step, going via transport, commerce, San Juan de Dios Market, Mexico, Romance languages, Precambrian, Chronology, etc...

View on HN

30 for "Howard Hughes"

uh oh... found a loop

mathematics -> quantity -> property_(philosophy) -> modern_philosophy -> western_europe -> europe -> continent -> landmass -> landform -> earth_sciences -> science -> knowledge -> fact -> information -> finite_set -> mathematics.

Makes sense for mathematics to be a loop since it's a self contained system.

Hmm. I just tried "Howard Hughes" and got only 15 steps.

Business_magnate -> Philanthropy -> Ancient_Greece -> History_of_Greece -> Greeks -> Nation -> Sovereign_state -> -> State_(polity) -> Social_sciences -> Field_of_study -> Academia -> Community -> Interacting -> Action_(philosophy) -> Philosophy

Has the script been tweaked already?

modern_philosophy -> western_europe

Looks like "philosophy" is the first link on the "Modern philosophy" page (and was last week when I first tried this).

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Modern_philosophy&...

I wonder how many Wikipedia edits this week are going to be to undo loops.

Me, I'd be more inclined to create them >_>

"Sushi" leads to a loop, too:

sushi japanese_cuisine japan japanese_language arabic_numerals symbol numeral_system mathematical_notation uh oh... found a loop

Its supposed to stop at philosophy..

Heh. "Philosophy":

uh oh... found a loop

philosophy -> existence -> sense -> organism -> biology -> natural_science -> science -> knowledge -> fact -> information -> sequence -> mathematics -> quantity -> property_(philosophy) -> modern_philosophy -> philosophy.

F-111 is 45 steps.

Now 32.

Playing games with an ever evolving game board is... interesting.

Now 36

I found a loop for Jersey Shore. I guess that sounds about right though.

"Beans" is 28 steps..

found another loop, on my first try nonetheless:

Genghis_Khan -> Mongolian_language -> Mongolia -> Mongolian_language

There's no loop there:

Genghis Khan -> Borjigin -> Clan -> People -> Human -> Taxonomy -> Science -> Knowledge -> Fact -> Information -> Sequence -> Mathematics -> Quantity -> Property (philosophy) -> Modern Philosophy -> Philosophy

Mongolian language is in parentheses, so you don't end up in the infinite loop.

So far, the only loop I can see is Panhard, though I'm sure someone will edit the page so that no longer happens. I think the stub pages have a far better chance of defying this law than any other page, though, so it's probably best to start there if you want to find more loops.

Font loops, at least according to the rules (ignoring italics and parens).

If it finds a loop, can't it go and explore other paths?

Please spend 38.9 seconds trying to understand the very very very simple algorithm that says: Follow the first link that... It doesn't say there are alternate choices. If you went with a different link than the first, it would no longer be the first.

Well, it is Wikipedia. The program _could_ go to Wikipedia, edit a page in the loop, save, and continue :-)

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