this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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xkcd

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

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

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[–] CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 30 points 11 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.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 46 points 11 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?

[–] CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago

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

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago

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

[–] palordrolap@kbin.run 5 points 11 months ago

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

[–] Contravariant@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

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

[–] Khanzarate@lemmy.world 5 points 11 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.

[–] stingpie@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago

Yass baby compare infinites to me harder