On Fri, 2009-01-16 at 14:00 -0700, Ian Kelly wrote: > On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Alex Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > > I award 8 x-points to Billy Pilgrim, for the only correct answer, even > > though it exploited a bug in the wording of the puzzle. (Yes, 0 is a > > finite number of operations.) > > Actually, it's not correct. The wording of the puzzle indicates that > at least two operations have already been performed: > > > You cut a slice, > > turn the slice over and put it back, then cut another slice adjacent to > > the first one and turn that over and put it back, and so forth, always > > moving clockwise. > > The puzzle then asks if it's ever possible to return from such a state > to the original state. 0 operations would leave the cake still > partially flipped. > I noticed that, but assumed it was counting from the start of the puzzle. So you turn the first two slices over, and then notice that at the start of the puzzle the cake was the right way up; mission accomplished (in the past, now how do I fix my cake?).
-- ais523
