4 ms·

If I remember correctly, it has to be something that the person was actually capable of, otherwise the person just dies.

by cbau 7y ago

arugulum 7y ago
The person is capable of writing down X, it's a handful of digits. Moreover it is not unreasonable for an amateur mathematician to do so. The fact that they entirely lucky that the series of digits indeed satisfies the mathematical condition we want is incidental but I believe abides by Death Note rules.
- danShumway 7y ago
  I think "capable" also takes into account knowledge they have. It's been a while since I watched Death Note, but isn't this brought up as a reason why Kira can't do, "writes down L's real name, then dies of a heart attack."? It would be theoretically possible for someone to be lucky enough to guess L's real name, but apparently the note has a bullcrap detector or something where it eventually just says, "no, they wouldn't really know to do that."
  - arugulum 7y ago
    Well we know the reason why Light says he can't do that is that "the person wouldn't know the name". But you're right in actuality that would allow for "person guesses the name, and is correct". And I think that is a loophole. Let me put this another way. I think the following would be considered a valid Death Note command. "Person flips a coin 100 times in a row, and gets heads every time". Now how is that different from "Person runs an RNG digit generator 100 times in a row, and gets 9s every time". Then "Person runs an RNG digit generator 100 times in a row, the 100 digit number is exactly divisible by 123456". Then "Person runs an RNG digit generator 100 times in a row, 2^x-1 of that number is prime". And if this is all iffy, let me propose an alternative. Let's assume (I'm not 100% sure of this) that we can verify large prime within 23 days. Heck, build a data center to do this if we have to. "Person runs RNG to generate x such that 2^x-1 is prime. Uses machine and verifies that it is indeed prime. Dies of joy." You can similarly use this to crack hashes, etc.
    - hobofan 7y ago
      The Death Note doesn't give the target any magic abilities, that the previously didn't have. > "Person flips a coin 100 times in a row, and gets heads every time". I'm pretty sure this would be interpreted as "The person has to flip coins until they have a 100 streak of only heads". This will obviously take a really long time, and the person might be driven insane before that. Similar things go for your other examples. In a comment further up you wrote: > in particular we know that the Death Note is able to "manipulate" luck I don't recall that specifically. Even then, I would guess that this has it's bounds. I also have the feeling (not backed up by lore, but I think it would fit in the world), that bigger manipulations would take more energy from the respective shinigami, so while a shinigami might be able to manipulate luck enough to make someone win the lottery, finding prime numbers would be too draining.
      - arugulum 7y ago
        >I'm pretty sure this would be interpreted as "The person has to flip coins until they have a 100 streak of only heads". I disagree. For example, Light has people die of getting run over a by truck. But the Death note does not interpret this is as "person repeatedly crosses the street until they get run over by a truck". Instead, events are (reasonably) manipulated such that a truck runs them over. Similarly, the coins would be manipulated to have 100 heads in a row. >I also have the feeling (not backed up by lore, but I think it would fit in the world), that bigger manipulations would take more energy from the respective shinigami, so while a shinigami might be able to manipulate luck enough to make someone win the lottery, finding prime numbers would be too draining. I wouldn't be surprised if this is true, but hey, what's a couple of Shinigami to save us some compute!
        danShumway 7y ago
        My impression is that the Death Note would only manipulate luck to a certain degree -- ie, if the odds of even occurring are greater than 1/x, just make it happen. That would allow you to get hit by a truck crossing the street, but not allow you to win a coin flip 100 times (7.8886091e-31 odds). You'd probably have to experiment to figure out what the threshold was. That being said... let's assume you're right. If the death note can manipulate odds to an arbitrary degree, you're thinking way too small right now. It would be much more efficient to write: "X opens a laptop text editor, closes their eyes, and hits keys randomly. They open their eyes and discover they have accidentally written an algorithm for quickly factoring large numbers. They copy and paste this algorithm into an encrypted email to light.iskira@gmail.com, then die by jumping in front of a bus." If X dies of a heart attack, you know your instructions didn't take and there's no algorithm for quickly factoring large numbers -- the problem was impossible. But then you can start modifying your query for, "an easy strategy for keeping cubits stable", or whatever you want to follow up with. If I have a fast-track to get at almost any (possible) invention I can think of, I'm not going to waste my time factoring large numbers!

If I remember correctly, it has to be something that the person was actually capable of, otherwise the person just dies.

by cbau 7y ago

If I remember correctly, it has to be something that the person was actually capable of, otherwise the person just dies.

arugulum 7y ago

The person is capable of writing down X, it's a handful of digits. Moreover it is not unreasonable for an amateur mathematician to do so. The fact that they entirely lucky that the series of digits indeed satisfies the mathematical condition we want is incidental but I believe abides by Death Note rules.

danShumway 7y ago
I think "capable" also takes into account knowledge they have. It's been a while since I watched Death Note, but isn't this brought up as a reason why Kira can't do, "writes down L's real name, then dies of a heart attack."? It would be theoretically possible for someone to be lucky enough to guess L's real name, but apparently the note has a bullcrap detector or something where it eventually just says, "no, they wouldn't really know to do that."
- arugulum 7y ago
  Well we know the reason why Light says he can't do that is that "the person wouldn't know the name". But you're right in actuality that would allow for "person guesses the name, and is correct". And I think that is a loophole. Let me put this another way. I think the following would be considered a valid Death Note command. "Person flips a coin 100 times in a row, and gets heads every time". Now how is that different from "Person runs an RNG digit generator 100 times in a row, and gets 9s every time". Then "Person runs an RNG digit generator 100 times in a row, the 100 digit number is exactly divisible by 123456". Then "Person runs an RNG digit generator 100 times in a row, 2^x-1 of that number is prime". And if this is all iffy, let me propose an alternative. Let's assume (I'm not 100% sure of this) that we can verify large prime within 23 days. Heck, build a data center to do this if we have to. "Person runs RNG to generate x such that 2^x-1 is prime. Uses machine and verifies that it is indeed prime. Dies of joy." You can similarly use this to crack hashes, etc.
  - hobofan 7y ago
    The Death Note doesn't give the target any magic abilities, that the previously didn't have. > "Person flips a coin 100 times in a row, and gets heads every time". I'm pretty sure this would be interpreted as "The person has to flip coins until they have a 100 streak of only heads". This will obviously take a really long time, and the person might be driven insane before that. Similar things go for your other examples. In a comment further up you wrote: > in particular we know that the Death Note is able to "manipulate" luck I don't recall that specifically. Even then, I would guess that this has it's bounds. I also have the feeling (not backed up by lore, but I think it would fit in the world), that bigger manipulations would take more energy from the respective shinigami, so while a shinigami might be able to manipulate luck enough to make someone win the lottery, finding prime numbers would be too draining.
    - arugulum 7y ago
      >I'm pretty sure this would be interpreted as "The person has to flip coins until they have a 100 streak of only heads". I disagree. For example, Light has people die of getting run over a by truck. But the Death note does not interpret this is as "person repeatedly crosses the street until they get run over by a truck". Instead, events are (reasonably) manipulated such that a truck runs them over. Similarly, the coins would be manipulated to have 100 heads in a row. >I also have the feeling (not backed up by lore, but I think it would fit in the world), that bigger manipulations would take more energy from the respective shinigami, so while a shinigami might be able to manipulate luck enough to make someone win the lottery, finding prime numbers would be too draining. I wouldn't be surprised if this is true, but hey, what's a couple of Shinigami to save us some compute!
      - danShumway 7y ago
        My impression is that the Death Note would only manipulate luck to a certain degree -- ie, if the odds of even occurring are greater than 1/x, just make it happen. That would allow you to get hit by a truck crossing the street, but not allow you to win a coin flip 100 times (7.8886091e-31 odds). You'd probably have to experiment to figure out what the threshold was. That being said... let's assume you're right. If the death note can manipulate odds to an arbitrary degree, you're thinking way too small right now. It would be much more efficient to write: "X opens a laptop text editor, closes their eyes, and hits keys randomly. They open their eyes and discover they have accidentally written an algorithm for quickly factoring large numbers. They copy and paste this algorithm into an encrypted email to light.iskira@gmail.com, then die by jumping in front of a bus." If X dies of a heart attack, you know your instructions didn't take and there's no algorithm for quickly factoring large numbers -- the problem was impossible. But then you can start modifying your query for, "an easy strategy for keeping cubits stable", or whatever you want to follow up with. If I have a fast-track to get at almost any (possible) invention I can think of, I'm not going to waste my time factoring large numbers!