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A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

nytimes.com

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Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#51

Post by rockdoe »

rtkwe wrote: post #2

Wonder how many people here immediately knew what the rule was? This is the standard example of to right way to test a hypothesis/theory and the power of Confirmation Bias, testing sequences that are invalid under the theory instead of testing what you think is correct.

I guessed that immediately (but still verified it). It was obvious it was going to be a trick question, so...

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#53

Post by sp332 »

EvanKelly wrote: post #47
sp332 wrote: post #27

I got 7 yes, 5 no, and was still wrong. Maybe I'm just dumb.

I'm curious about how you came to your answer and what led you there? Were you testing a pre-supposed hypothesis that confirmed itself?

I got the part about increasing eventually, but I thought the third number also had to be the sum of the other two. I came up with the sum idea after trying (3 6 9), so only 2 tests. The idea that they had to be increasing came later. I don't have it open but I'm pretty sure one of my tests was (1 2 5) which should have tipped me off... in conclusion yes, I'm probably dumb.

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#54

Post by kittenfluff »

tmd wrote: post #7

It responds "No" to (10000000000000000, 10000000000000001, 10000000000000002) so the rule is not so simple after all :)

Responds "Yes" to

  9007199254740990, 9007199254740991, 9007199254740992
but "No" to

  9007199254740991, 9007199254740992, 9007199254740993
Presumably this is due to how Javascript handles integers, i.e. it uses the integer part of a float64, to wit

  > parseInt('9007199254740992')
  9007199254740992
  > parseInt('9007199254740993')
  9007199254740992
Edit: I think this is the code that actually reads the numbers the user enters, see [0]

  function l(){
      var a=h.exec(m[1]),f=null,g=null,n=null;
      return a&&(null!==a[1]&&a[1]&&(f=parseInt(a[1],10)),
          null!==a[2]&&a[2]&&(g=parseInt(a[2],10)),
          null!==a[3]&&a[3]&&(n=parseInt(a[3],10))),
      new e(f,g,n)
  }
Edit(2): Actually, I'm not so sure that's the correct code at all. They NYT game is capable of parsing floats correctly (e.g. it accepts 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 as a "Yes") so it's not just using parseInt.

[0] http://a1.nyt.com/assets/interactive/20150612-151638/js/foun...

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#56

Post by [deleted] »

rm999 wrote: post #39
[deleted] wrote: post #11

[deleted]

>In order to prove their point effectively without falling in the same trap they are pointing, they should conduct the same experiment with a random example each time, not one especially created to mislead the experimentee. This is the point though - we all have preexisting beliefs, and we often don't critically question those beliefs. The [x,2x,4x] pattern injected into our minds by nytimes is playing the part of th…

[deleted]

Re: A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving

#59

Post by diminishedprime »

veli_joza wrote: post #10
ddlatham wrote: post #3

I'm curious to see more about the distribution of questions and answers people had, and how the HN population may differ from the NYT's. There will certainly be self selection bias here, but if you're willing to share how you did with others, please enter it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl8GeCV... The result summary is visible here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17e5BIL0lH8OHsGj89Zdtdl…

People familiar with unit testing and test driven development will feel at home with this kind of puzzle. That doesn't mean that they will be less biased in social/political decisions, it just means that this test will fail to prove a point.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I (sometimes) follow TDD, and I applied it to this problem. I made sure to include negatives, 0, positives, and include primes here or there to help avoid issues with multiplication/exponentiation. After a few of these, I felt pretty confident that the rule was simple.
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