Re: Complete the sequence problems

[Stefan Jeglinski <jeglin@4PI.COM>]

> It is the rare bird
> (like YYHLYEYTR perhaps) that doesn't and they are always highly
> culture-dependent.

I don't think I ever thought about this as culture, but the present
thread really drives this point home. Thank you for highlighting this.


> Where else but on the planet earth in the decades around the turning of
> the 3rd millenium, for instance, would one find "*,0,#" a reasonable
> contender for extending the sequence "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9"?


I realized the culture aspect when my first thought was "*,0,# makes
no sense. It should be A,B,C,D,E,F." I thought this before catching
myself! Very relevant to the turn of the millennium, but unlikely
just a short time ago in our history. That is "culture" if I ever saw
it.


> And a final VERY difficult challenge for anyone: Find the "best" candidate
> for the next member of the sequence EQKSIRMMDL.


OK, I'll consider it :-), but is there an outstanding pedagogic
example of this? I'm actually thinking along the lines of Jack
Uretsky's very important point about the difference between
"predicting" and "merely reproducing" data. I would like to find a
good illustration of this dichotomy. If I am not mistaken, there are
examples of this in the field of nuclear physics, but I'm looking for
something on a high-school level with more of a physics bent than
letter sequences (for example).



Stefan Jeglinski