On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Alex Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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?). Hmmm, very good point, root. I was operating under the same assumption as ais523. How about -2 operations? :-)
