Welcome back to all those back! A little poem for those so willing

Welcome back to the new semester you guys! I hope it's going to be a blessed and promising semester for all of you, and having spoken to some of you already, I get a sense that this semester's off to a pleasant start! And for those of you whose semester is their last, make the best of it!

Wow. Ok, sorry for the lack of updates after my aforementioned promises. Seriously, with teaching and applying for summer internships preoccupying my time, I've been awfully tired and can't seem to find the time to be updating. So shame on me.

Regarding the actual job hunt itself, it is far from promising. I've become immune to the rejections to even be interviewd, knowing full well firms are going to be recruiting far less and less this year. But that's not to say I'm going to stop trying. Appropriately enough, I stumbled across this poem in my SSAT prep book of all places.

"Hope"

Emly Dickenson

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

and sore must be the storm

That could abash the litle bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

So I'm definitely hoping and praying I'll qualify and land something I'll truly enjoy, although it's too early to say. For now, I'm just going to keep persisting and look around. In the meantime, looking forward to Obama's inauguration tomorrow, which should be nothing short of awesome and historic. 

Follow up to come. Don't start skipping classes just quite yet!

Knights or Knaves!

Courtesy of xkcd. I like to think of this as "Knights, Knaves, (K)nuisance". So we looked at a bit of probability with the first, now let's look at logic with the second. Introducing, the 2nd puzzle! The famous Knights or Knaves puzzle!

I came across this puzzle (or rather, was assigned this puzzle) in my Symbolic Logic class in sophomore year. While I had to use truth tables and translating all these sentences into propositions in the formal language, I'll just give you a little sample of what the puzzle entails and build from the ground upwards. So here goes.

There is an island far off in the Pacific, called the island of Knights and Knaves. On this island, there are people called knights (who always tell the truth) and knaves (who always lie). They may be either male or female.

You meet three inhabitants: A, B and C. A says  it s not the case that C is a knave. B says C and A are both knights. C says  A is a knight or B is a knave. Which, if any, are knights? Which, if any, are knaves? 

If that was nothing more than a walk in the park for you, the next one is arguably the most famous case of the Knights or Knaves puzzle and you've probably come across it somewhere.

John and Bill are standing at a fork in the road. You know that one of them is a knight and the other a knave, but you don't know which. You also know that one road leads to Death, and the other leads to Freedom. By asking one yes/no question, can you determine the road to Freedom?

And then if you're REALLY up for the task, check this out. I kid you not when I say this, but this is officially "The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever". It's actually called that! You get this, and you are easily considered one of the finest logicians today, assuming people can consider themself to be a logician by trade. As if you didn't realize already, this is mad HARD, and I would advise you to actually save yourself before risking your head exploding from the sheer ridiculousness of it. It's also appropriately epic in its polytheistic subject matter and scope. So without further ado, "The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever".

Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for yes and no are 'da' and 'ja', in some order. You do not know which word means which. 

...So yeah, let's see you how fare with these. As usual, solutions to follow after. In the meantime, give thee brain a workout with these 3 puzzles!

~Shimmy

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody! I promise, more updates will come. It's just surprising how easily tired I am these days, and I confess, I've been pretty preoccupied with work, family, and bumming around, and I still haven't figured out my resolutions yet. But in the meantime, enjoy the start of 2009 everybody! 

~Shimmy