Look-and-Say Numbers featuring John Conway [video]

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13 pointsemmanueloga_2 comments

"The most stupidest problem you could conceivably imagine can lead to the most complicated answer you could conceivably imagine."

"Somehow it was supposed to guess [the sequence] ... in the end he had to tell me."

Reminds me of those IQ tests were you are supposed to guess the sequence. This sole anecdote is not enough to invalidate the method, but gives me a hint judging someone intelligence by having him complete number sequences (or geometric ones for that matter) may not be that effective.

The fun thing about finite sequences is that you can find mathematical rules for arbitrary continuations (in the simplest way with more or less explicit ifs as (n mod i)) with no way of deciding what the right one is, except maybe that less complicated ones are probably not the solution.

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