5 ms·

The best suggestion I've seen is 1¢ for the 141st character, 2¢ for the 142nd, 4¢ for the 143rd, etc. Going slightly over 140 costs a trivial amount, but it wou

by evanpw 11y ago

The best suggestion I've seen is 1¢ for the 141st character, 2¢ for the 142nd, 4¢ for the 143rd, etc. Going slightly over 140 costs a trivial amount, but it would be stupidly expensive to tweet anything really long. EDIT: I found where I stole this idea from: http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6207.html http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/6207.html

michaelmrose 11y ago
Nobody would pay for this. They would just continue writing blog posts and linking them on twitter
baddox 11y ago
Ah yes, only $100k for a 160 character tweet. Edit: mental math botched. I thought I remembered the powers of 2 better than I actually did. 160 characters would be about 10k, and 100k would buy you a whopping 163 characters.
- lightbright 11y ago
  No, like 50 cents.
  - saurik 11y ago
    ?! The sum of powers of 2 up to 20 is 2^21-1, which is ~$20k; so not $100k, but definitely not 50 cents.
    - baddox 11y ago
      Yeah, I botched my mental math, but yours isn't quite right either, because the 141st character is 1 cent, which is 2^0. So the 20th power of two in this context is 2^19, and the sum of the powers of two up to the 19th is 2^20 - 1.
      - saurik 11y ago
        Damn. I had originally even typed it with 2^20-1 and $10k, but then second-guessed myself. (This process of me second guessing my math intuition and then making it worse is also why I didn't end up competing on the national level for my state in the high school math leagues ;P.)
  - 6d0debc071 11y ago
    What evanpw seems to be suggesting grows faster than you might think. There's a neat story on that point: http://mathforum.org/sanders/geometry/GP11Fable.html http://mathforum.org/sanders/geometry/GP11Fable.html
- tomswartz07 11y ago
  If they make the limit infinite, you'd end up being paid -1/12 of a cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww
  - barsonme 11y ago
    Good Lord, I watched the second video -- the one featuring Ed Copeland -- and I think I just fried my brain for the rest of the day. (Also, he has fantastic penmanship.)
  - serge2k 11y ago
    Only if you're an Indian Mathematician. or a physicist.
  - owenversteeg 11y ago
    Nope! http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2014/01/17/bad-math-from-the-bad-astronomer/ http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2014/01/17/bad-math-from-the-...
    - openasocket 11y ago
      Incorrect, there is actually some well-established mathematics dealing with divergent series as summing to finite values via analytic continuation. These results have to be treated with care, because they are inconsistent under certain algebraic manipulations, but the techniques are "real" enough that their results are used in particle physics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regularization_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regularization_(physics)
      - owenversteeg 11y ago
        "The sum of the series 1+2+3+4+5+6... = -1/12" is patently false, without a previous assertion that we have assumed the Cesàro sum of a series is equal to the series. Even mathematicians working with Cesàro sums surround such statements with "this holds only if we interpret the infinite sum defining Z to be the Cesàro sum..." [0] Precisely none of the times I've heard the "1+2+3+4...=-1/12" bullshit has the person stating it prefaced their statement with "this holds only if we interpret the infinite sum defining Z to be the Cesàro sum..." If you say that "1+2+3+4...=-1/12" without stating your prior assumptions, you suddenly allow anyone to make any assumption whatsoever, no matter how obscure it is. In your imaginary world, someone could walk into a store and claim that "this 95 cent pack of gum is free" because they just made the unstated assumption that all non-integers do not exist, and seconds later they could return it for a full refund of $0.95 after making the unstated assumption that in fact the rational numbers do exist. Numbers, and in fact the entire system of mathematics fail to work at all once you allow arbitrary, unstated assumptions no matter their obscurity. And in fact, the assumption that non-integer numbers do not exist is made far, far more frequently than the assumption that the infinite sum defining the sequence is the Cesàro sum. The only difference is that assuming the non-integer numbers do not exist is a defensible assumption in many, many scenarios... but Cesàro summations are only invoked about twelve times a year, in pure math or advanced physics papers. [0] Madras, Neal. "A Note on Diffusion State Distance." arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.07315 (2015).
- myth_buster 11y ago
  $10K
- knodi123 11y ago
  What? Not at all! Here's the price for those message lengths: 141 $0.01 142 $0.03 143 $0.07 144 $0.15 145 $0.31 146 $0.63 147 $1.27 148 $2.55 149 $5.11 150 $10.23 151 $20.47 152 $40.95 153 $81.91 154 $163.83 155 $327.67 156 $655.35 157 $1,310.71 158 $2,621.43 159 $5,242.87 160 $10,485.75
johnchristopher 11y ago
I fail to see the rationale behind this.

by evanpw 11y ago

michaelmrose 11y ago

Nobody would pay for this. They would just continue writing blog posts and linking them on twitter

baddox 11y ago

Ah yes, only $100k for a 160 character tweet. Edit: mental math botched. I thought I remembered the powers of 2 better than I actually did. 160 characters would be about 10k, and 100k would buy you a whopping 163 characters.

lightbright 11y ago
No, like 50 cents.
- saurik 11y ago
  ?! The sum of powers of 2 up to 20 is 2^21-1, which is ~$20k; so not $100k, but definitely not 50 cents.
  - baddox 11y ago
    Yeah, I botched my mental math, but yours isn't quite right either, because the 141st character is 1 cent, which is 2^0. So the 20th power of two in this context is 2^19, and the sum of the powers of two up to the 19th is 2^20 - 1.
    - saurik 11y ago
      Damn. I had originally even typed it with 2^20-1 and $10k, but then second-guessed myself. (This process of me second guessing my math intuition and then making it worse is also why I didn't end up competing on the national level for my state in the high school math leagues ;P.)
- 6d0debc071 11y ago
  What evanpw seems to be suggesting grows faster than you might think. There's a neat story on that point: http://mathforum.org/sanders/geometry/GP11Fable.html http://mathforum.org/sanders/geometry/GP11Fable.html
tomswartz07 11y ago
If they make the limit infinite, you'd end up being paid -1/12 of a cent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww
- barsonme 11y ago
  Good Lord, I watched the second video -- the one featuring Ed Copeland -- and I think I just fried my brain for the rest of the day. (Also, he has fantastic penmanship.)
- serge2k 11y ago
  Only if you're an Indian Mathematician. or a physicist.
- owenversteeg 11y ago
  Nope! http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2014/01/17/bad-math-from-the-bad-astronomer/ http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2014/01/17/bad-math-from-the-...
  - openasocket 11y ago
    Incorrect, there is actually some well-established mathematics dealing with divergent series as summing to finite values via analytic continuation. These results have to be treated with care, because they are inconsistent under certain algebraic manipulations, but the techniques are "real" enough that their results are used in particle physics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regularization_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regularization_(physics)
    - owenversteeg 11y ago
      "The sum of the series 1+2+3+4+5+6... = -1/12" is patently false, without a previous assertion that we have assumed the Cesàro sum of a series is equal to the series. Even mathematicians working with Cesàro sums surround such statements with "this holds only if we interpret the infinite sum defining Z to be the Cesàro sum..." [0] Precisely none of the times I've heard the "1+2+3+4...=-1/12" bullshit has the person stating it prefaced their statement with "this holds only if we interpret the infinite sum defining Z to be the Cesàro sum..." If you say that "1+2+3+4...=-1/12" without stating your prior assumptions, you suddenly allow anyone to make any assumption whatsoever, no matter how obscure it is. In your imaginary world, someone could walk into a store and claim that "this 95 cent pack of gum is free" because they just made the unstated assumption that all non-integers do not exist, and seconds later they could return it for a full refund of $0.95 after making the unstated assumption that in fact the rational numbers do exist. Numbers, and in fact the entire system of mathematics fail to work at all once you allow arbitrary, unstated assumptions no matter their obscurity. And in fact, the assumption that non-integer numbers do not exist is made far, far more frequently than the assumption that the infinite sum defining the sequence is the Cesàro sum. The only difference is that assuming the non-integer numbers do not exist is a defensible assumption in many, many scenarios... but Cesàro summations are only invoked about twelve times a year, in pure math or advanced physics papers. [0] Madras, Neal. "A Note on Diffusion State Distance." arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.07315 (2015).
myth_buster 11y ago
$10K
knodi123 11y ago
What? Not at all! Here's the price for those message lengths: 141 $0.01 142 $0.03 143 $0.07 144 $0.15 145 $0.31 146 $0.63 147 $1.27 148 $2.55 149 $5.11 150 $10.23 151 $20.47 152 $40.95 153 $81.91 154 $163.83 155 $327.67 156 $655.35 157 $1,310.71 158 $2,621.43 159 $5,242.87 160 $10,485.75

johnchristopher 11y ago

I fail to see the rationale behind this.