[HN Gopher] Assigning Open Problems in Class
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Assigning Open Problems in Class
Author : baruchel
Score : 6 points
Date : 2026-02-16 06:43 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.computationalcomplexity.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.computationalcomplexity.org)
| rappatic wrote:
| This reminds me of my undergrad "discrete math" lecture notes,
| where my professor wrote the following in the unit on sets:
|
| > This brings us to a fun problem for you to think about in your
| spare time: are there any infinite sets that have cardinality
| strictly between [the cardinality of the natural numbers] and
| [the cardinality of the real numbers]?
|
| This is of course the famously undecidable continuum hypothesis
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis).
| digitallogic wrote:
| I had an advanced algorithms professor who was brilliant but not
| always put together. Eg - he didn't always dress himself
| correctly. Think, two different shoes or a button shirt mis-
| buttoned so there was an extra hole at the top.
|
| He came in one day and wrote this problem on the board, and asked
| if anyone could solve it in O(n log n). No one did, he seemed
| really disappointed. The TA came in afterwards, and someone asked
| why we were going over this specific problem. Would it be on the
| final? The TA said "You professor gave you this problem because
| he went to a conference recently, and this was announced to great
| fanfare as a new unsolved problem. For the last two weeks, he's
| been asking anyone who will listen if they can solve this
| problem."
| Upvoter33 wrote:
| I mean, why not?
|
| Haven't people seen the documentary, "Good Will Hunting"?
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