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Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

ryanelmquist.com

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Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#72

Post by vrdabomb5717 »

zephjc wrote: post #62
camtarn wrote: post #5

Hah. The hypothesis is false, but the script already has that covered via loop detection... nice :) panhard Auverland Panhard uh oh... found a loop panhard -> auverland -> panhard. So far the longest trail I've found, at 25 steps, was from 'ED209' via pottery, through minerals, states of matter, knowledge, finite sets, mathematics... that's one heck of a wikitrail. [edit] Scratch that, 'Horst link' is longer via one…

found another loop, on my first try nonetheless: Genghis_Khan -> Mongolian_language -> Mongolia -> Mongolian_language

There's no loop there:

Genghis Khan -> Borjigin -> Clan -> People -> Human -> Taxonomy -> Science -> Knowledge -> Fact -> Information -> Sequence -> Mathematics -> Quantity -> Property (philosophy) -> Modern Philosophy -> Philosophy

Mongolian language is in parentheses, so you don't end up in the infinite loop.

So far, the only loop I can see is Panhard, though I'm sure someone will edit the page so that no longer happens. I think the stub pages have a far better chance of defying this law than any other page, though, so it's probably best to start there if you want to find more loops.

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#74

Post by kd0amg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #60
kd0amg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

modern_philosophy -> western_europe Looks like "philosophy" is the first link on the "Modern philosophy" page (and was last week when I first tried this). http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Modern_philosophy&...

I wonder how many Wikipedia edits this week are going to be to undo loops.

Me, I'd be more inclined to create them >_>

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#77

Post by rufibarbatus »

nickolai wrote: post #61

XKCD Webcomic Comics Graphic Visual_perception Visible_light Electromagnetic_radiation Energy Physics Natural_science Science Knowledge Fact Information Sequence Mathematics Quantity Property_(philosophy) Modern_philosophy Philosophy 19 steps to philosophy

Main_Page is currently taking 19 steps too. (According to the program—other comments here point out that it may be ignoring the comic's rules.)

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#78

Post by eru »

hugh3 wrote: post #25
lloeki wrote: post #20

Wow, someone just modified Modern Philosophy (now first link is Western Europe), Science and/or Knowledge pages, which makes most previously things tried by me kick into a 25 loop. I'm wondering if it's intentional.

Most things were getting stuck in a loop around "Indo-European languages" last time I checked. Someone is definitely playing silly buggers. I was tempted to see whether I could somehow engineer an all-roads-lead-to-goatse situation, but I couldn't think of a plausible pathway.

Just hijack Philosophy.

Re: Inspired by XKCD:903, Wikipedia steps to philosophy

#79

Post by eru »

dspillett wrote: post #17

Excellent. Saved me some clicking resulting in more efficient use of procrastination time! I hit loops a few times - you could drop to the second link in those cases instead of stopping completely.

If you drop out of loops, you will reach every article eventually. (Unless you are ending in a cul de sac.)
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