this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
350 points (97.0% liked)

xkcd

8773 readers
121 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

https://xkcd.com/2861/

Alt text:

The value of n is still unknown, but new results constrain it to fall between 8 and 10^500, ruling out popular 'n=1' and 'n=2' theories.

top 22 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago

X = 10, learn your Roman numerals

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Close, but it's actually 5 and the biggest German newspaper covered it a decade ago. Also: I feel old now.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

To be clear for non-Germans: "Der Postillon" is a satire-newspaper and only calls itself "The biggest German daily newspaper of the World". 😅

Edit: typo dayly > daily

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm not even sure they call themself that but they have "honest news, independent, fast since 1845" and they "report before they investigate", that's how fast they are. They are the equivalent of The Onion I would say

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's what they say, when you google them, but it's probably not their real slogan, you're right.

And yes, I would agree that they are the equivalent of The Onion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

If they say it, I'm sure it is true. I just wanted to avoid the situation where I think you said it and you think I did

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

The specific number 4.1083 does not have any notable significance or special role in the contexts of physics, chemistry, finance, astronomy or cryptography.[citation needed] 4.1083 (or at least 4.108) has been referenced previously in comic 899: Number Line.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Gonna go with the last one in the discussion part

TWTR earlier this month had a market cap of $41.09bn

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Curious, according to whom? Outside of just unsourced reports of its market cap, the estimates on its valuation are less than half that number.

I really cannot find a news source.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

According to their ass, private companies don't have a market cap, they're not on the market.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But if you search for Twitter market cap as of today it’s that number. Super weird. Maybe it’s just bots scraping each others.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

The best you'll get is evaluations of how much the company might be able to sell for or could open at on the stock market but that's based on thin air and many companies enter the market being evaluated at X$ only to crash in the next few days to their real value (see Robinhood).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Hmm you're right, honestly I just googled and saw the same exact number with a decimal point shifted, so I put two and two together

As for whether that number is actually a valid valuation, I've not got the information to say

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Market cap? It's a private company, it doesn't have a market cap.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Wake me up when they figure out epsilon

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Let epsilon be a large number

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This makes me irrationally uncomfortable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No one said it was irrational, but sure why not

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Statistically, 100% of large numbers are irrational so we should assume that it is

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Let |ε| < 0...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

80085 = XXX

X = 43.103948978092