this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 29 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Yes I know about the halting problem, I got extra credit in school for writing a paper with a detailed analysis of a busy beaver machine which at the time ran longer than any in the published literature. I just can't understand the joke... are there people on the second track? Won't the train stop wherever the person is, since the person is defined to be left at the place the trolley will stop? Won't the person die of old age? Why does the diagram show them only 50 meters away, where they're definitely going to die one second from now?

HELP I AM CONFUSED I AM TAKING IT TOO SERIOUSLY

[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 22 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yep, my brain also jammed trying to understand what is meant here. Even though I got a degree in theoretical CS...

[–] degen@midwest.social 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

My thought is the left track should start the Turing machine, which is more of an infinite sum joke than the halting problem necessarily? Or the halting problem bit is a sort of tangential pun. The right should just be an infinite track with a person at the end.

Edit: I suppose the infinite sum/halting problem are better described as two sides of the same coin than tangential.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago

Yes I stumbled on the secondary thought process of how many people I'm trying, or not trying to run over....which isn't clear.

[–] cybervseas@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

We would need to define an oracle that would put the person at that spot though. Right?