[Oberon] [OT] Re: System-7 - Math popular consts

[Till Oliver Knoll]

> Am 01.03.2019 um 13:08 schrieb Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>:
> 
>> On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 at 19:43, Tomas Kral <thomas.kral at email.cz> wrote:
>> 
>> Something between 2 and 3 is sort of right, how very interesting, that
>> reminds of chaos theory I never understood :-)
> 
> If I may be forgiven for a joke...
> 
> «
> The executive search committee had narrowed down the candidates for
> the company’s next president to four people.  The final four:  a high
> school algebra teacher, an attorney, an engineer, and a Certified
> Public Accountant.
> 
> The subcommittee had one final question to distinguish between the
> four. With everyone gathered together, they asked “What is 2 and 2?”
> 
> The engineer pulled out her smart phone and started tapping rapidly.
> 
> The algebra teacher immediately raised his hand and after a nod from
> the committee chair boldly said “Four.”
> 
> When asked for her thoughts, the attorney said “There is ambiguity in
> the question. If we infer this is intended to be a mathematical
> operation, then the next step is the addition process of two plus two,
> which we can stipulate equals four. In the alternative, if we infer
> this is a linear operation, then one would place the numeral 2
> immediately after another numeral 2, which give an answer of 22.
> Absent clarification from you and further research on my part, I am
> unable to give a definitive opinion.”
> 
> The committee chair thanked the attorney for her response, then asked
> the engineer for her idea. The engineer said “After performing
> research of the relevant literature and developing several
> spreadsheets, I have definitively concluded the answer is 4.  If I may
> have your e-mail address, I will forward you my research and the draft
> of a paper I plan to submit to my industry’s leading trade journal.”
> 
> The chair provided an e-mail address to use, then pointed to the CPA
> inviting his thoughts.
> 
> The CPA, an experienced auditor who had recently retired from one of
> the big accounting firms, smiled politely and said “What number did
> you have in mind?”
> »
> 
> 
> -- 
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On a similar note: the gaming industry‘s best kept secret for many years was the following performance optimisation:

#define PI 3

;)

IIRC that was a real „performance optimisation“ introduced by John Carmack in Doom, allowing for integer math in many places. And „circles were round enough“ that way ;) Not sure whether that is some urban myth though, since I could not find any reference at a glance...

Cheers, Oliver