Please enter the first 1727 digits of e | Hacker News Reader

Please enter the first 1727 digits of e

isotf.org

16 pointsscdlbx16 comments

It pays to read to the end:

  in reverse order. Starting from the 1st occurrence of the digit sequence, 53961271991.

It also pays to read the source.

It's static HTML.

Is it maybe a kind of combo lock with http://www.isotf.org/?page_value= ?

I still don't get it.

The page contains no form or JS, so entering the digits won't actually do anything. Clearly we are dealing with some sort of joke.

It isn't very funny.

Me either.

I calculated the first 10 million digits of E:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/59605/ten_million_e.txt

However, the digit sequence I was looking for didn't appear :-(

Looks like it would require a massive amount of computing power (or a much better algorithm than mine) to solve this.

I'm curious as to how were you able to calculate the value of 'e' to such a large extent, can you share the code ?

I think I will need a botnet to fill that form...Anyone renting?

At first it sounds like a Google job application, but it appears to be some sort of CAPTCHA to prevent people from reporting too many botnets.

Is it a CAPTCHA or a CAPTHCA? Keeps computers in and humans out...?

It changes each time you visit it. I just got

Please enter the first 2577 digits of (1/2)!.

Me too. I'm not even sure what that means. Are you supposed to apply the gamma function?

I still don't understand the point of the page, but you're right that (1/2)! can be expressed in terms of the gamma function: (1/2)! = Γ(3/2) = √π/2. As usual, Wolfram Alpha knows all:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281%2F2%29%21

i don't get it.

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