3 ms·

I implemented Busy Beaver the other day. Here's the code and nice looking graphs: http://www.catonmat.net/blog/busy-beaver/ http://www.catonmat.net/blog/busy-b

• schoen 8y ago
  "The other day" in 2009? :-) Why did you say that the 6th busy beaver number "shall never be known"? The best refinement of the formal proof by Aaronson's student puts the 1919th value absolutely out of reach (per a link from HN user panic), but that's a ways away from 6... I know some authors, I think including Martin Gardner and maybe Donald Knuth, have said that they don't necessarily expect humanity to establish the 6th busy beaver number with current mathematical methods, but "shall never be found" seems a bit too strong to me.
  • adrianN 8y ago
    Impossible to know in principle is different from impossible to know in the physical universe.