News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Difficult math is about recognizing patterns. Parent comment

Re:Difficult math is about recognizing patterns by sjg007 on Monday August 09, 2021 @07:10PM (#28123459)
The big issue is understanding what the problem is asking. Once you get that the pattern is easy.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Difficult math is about recognizing patterns by foxes on Monday August 09, 2021 @09:31PM (#28124306)
I am not sure that is always true, there are plenty of problems that are easy to state, but finding the "pattern" can be out of reach. Eg Collatz conjecture? However there are obviously a subset of problems I guess that can be solved once you realise what they are asking.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Difficult math is about recognizing patterns by sjg007 on Monday August 09, 2021 @09:34PM (#28124321)
Are you suggesting that the Collatz conjecture is a valid interview question?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Difficult math is about recognizing patterns by foxes on Monday August 09, 2021 @11:04PM (#28124780)
Proving it no one has any ideas, but generating the sequence given the input is definitely an interview style question.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Difficult math is about recognizing patterns by rejectedandsad on Monday August 09, 2021 @10:14PM (#28124539)
It is, it’s a fairly standard warmup interview problem.

https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/489169/Googl...

[ Parent | on HN ]