this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
292 points (99.0% liked)

xkcd

8890 readers
4 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

alt text:

Calligraphy exam: Write down the number 37, spelled out, nicely.

explananation: https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2966:_Exam_Numbers

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (6 children)

For the final answer, I guess Big Omega, unless you don't count infinities in which case my answer is getting up and arguing with the professor because "the number of times I can recursively write TREE(TREE(TREE... is just as arbitrary as declaring a biggest theoretical number and assigning it a new symbol.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Of course it includes infinities, and when was the last time you saw a postgrad exam whose answers didn't include an argument with the professor?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

"How well you can irl debate me bro on the exam room floor will account for 50% of your final grade."

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

That's actually the correct answer. If you don't get angry and start an argument, you fail.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

In fact the answer was a series of definitions of new biggest numbers, and you only defined one, instead of defining it, using it for its value of trees, then using that new term for more trees.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

The biggest number that can be defined in fewer than twenty words.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

"The largest non-impossible ordinal that is less than the number of infinities there are."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The set of real numbers between 0 & 1 is larger than any countable infinity.

[–] Sethayy 3 points 3 months ago

Yass baby compare infinites to me harder