Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

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econgator
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by econgator »

PlayerWM86 wrote:For the automobile racing fan I am, I got Melbourne in the J! round. (On an unrelated note, congrats to Lewis Hamilton for winning the Australian GP race there last weekend!)
*nod* That was a dominating performance. Mercedes is just scary this year.

Also, there goes one of the questions for my upcoming F1 1DS. ;)
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by lieph82 »

OSXpert wrote:One big reason why the distinction was made was so that every number can have a unique prime factorization.

Consider the number 12:

If 1 is prime, we can write 12 = 2 x 2 x 3 or we can write 12 = 1 x 2 x 2 x 3 or we can write 12 = 1 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 3 or we can write 12 = 1 x 1 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 3 and these are all different ways of writing 12 as a product of primes.

But if the definition of prime excludes 1, the only way to write 12 as a product of primes is 12 = 2 x 2 x 3.

But, yeah, it is one of those "its true because we say its true" things.
Of course, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic could easily be amended to say "prime numbers greater than 1" if the definition of prime were changed. As you say at the end, definitions are really just a matter of convenience.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by legendneverdies »

omgwheelhouse wrote:What a heartbreaker for Colin. Math terms... not high on most people's lists of study topics. Big congrats to Kristin for (probably) securing a tournament spot!
A bigger heartbreaker as he came into a woman who recognized the two-thirds rule, and made it a two-thirds game on the last clue of DJ! IIRC.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by CrunchyTaco »

I could have sworn I heard Colin say Nienmeyer as opposed to Niemeyer.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by sillymonkey »

Congratulations to Kristen for winning her 5th game, making 5-game winning a family affair, astute wagering, getting a math question right, and beating an excellent challenger. Well done!!
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by goforthetie »

lieph82 wrote:
OSXpert wrote: But, yeah, it is one of those "its true because we say its true" things.
Of course, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic could easily be amended to say "prime numbers greater than 1" if the definition of prime were changed. As you say at the end, definitions are really just a matter of convenience.
Yes and no. It is not just "convenience", it is that it makes much more sense to define the set of primes so as not to include 1. For instance, we could define the term "integers" to include pi, but that would just be silly.

Congrats on the win, Kristin!
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by goforthetie »

legendneverdies wrote:
omgwheelhouse wrote:What a heartbreaker for Colin. Math terms... not high on most people's lists of study topics. Big congrats to Kristin for (probably) securing a tournament spot!
A bigger heartbreaker as he came into a woman who recognized the two-thirds rule, and made it a two-thirds game on the last clue of DJ! IIRC.
Kristin making it a 2/3 game didn't cost Colin the win. It cost Kristin some cash.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by BADuBois »

Congrats to Kristen on a very impressive win! Hope your smiling steamroller continues.

When it came to FJ, I went with 11. My wife, an MIT graduate, went with 23.

That's why she does the taxes in our household. :D
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by nightreign »

I got FJ. The perks of being a math professor's daughter who has done mathletes, I suppose.

I like Kristin a lot and was excited to see her win again. I'm excited to see you in the ToC!

(Is this the first husband-wife pair where both have won 5 games?)
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by zakharov »

I too fell for the trap of 1 being prime. Will we be seeing this on the week's poll?

I cruised through the first round but got crushed in DJ. Seems to be a theme with me these days, unfortunately.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by DBear »

omgwheelhouse wrote:What a heartbreaker for Colin. Math terms... not high on most people's lists of study topics. Big congrats to Kristin for (probably) securing a tournament spot!
Nah, Colin would've had it won had he been more familiar with the Salem witch trials.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by lieph82 »

goforthetie wrote:
lieph82 wrote:
OSXpert wrote: But, yeah, it is one of those "its true because we say its true" things.
Of course, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic could easily be amended to say "prime numbers greater than 1" if the definition of prime were changed. As you say at the end, definitions are really just a matter of convenience.
Yes and no. It is not just "convenience", it is that it makes much more sense to define the set of primes so as not to include 1. For instance, we could define the term "integers" to include pi, but that would just be silly.

Congrats on the win, Kristin!
To include pi in the set of integers, you'd have to amend the definition of "integer" to say "a number that can be written without a fractional component, or pi." That's silly, because why include pi? What makes it more like the integers than 3.7 or phi? But the definition of "prime" is "a natural number greater than one that has no positive divisors other than one and itself," excluding one not naturally, but by affixation. 1 adheres to the other major property of prime numbers (this is not true if you use OS's definition for "prime," which I believe is a teaching tool and not the original definition).

If we took away the affixation from the definition of prime, some theorems would have to be amended to say "for primes greater than 1" and some theorems that already applied to 1 as well as the primes could be simplified in language.

We define things so that they'll be convenient to use when we need them, but definitions in math rarely change. So it's conceivable to me that it might have made sense to exclude 1 from the primes a million years ago, but now, with all of our new theorems, it doesn't. I'm not going to look at every single theorem involving prime numbers and see (for the record, right now I agree with you that the current definition is probably most sensible).
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by opusthepenguin »

Kristin, on behalf of the Wagering Vikings, you're welcome. :D

EDIT: Of course, now that I think about it, we probably cost you some money.
Last edited by opusthepenguin on Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by elijahjt »

I'm surprised so many fell for the 1 is prime trap. I mean, I consider myself mathematically inclined, but even for those who aren't:

I wonder, does Jeopardy! have clues along the lines of "This is the X that also fits Y limitation", when the solution satisfies "This is the X" alone? I didn't think they went for such trick questions, but do they?
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by jjwaymee »

That was a hell of a game. Colin came to play. In an alternate universe where he didn't have to face Kristin he could have been a TOCer himself.

I can never keep straight whether Great Slave or Great Bear was the biggest lake in Canada. That was a near-disasterous miss and rebound against Kristin.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by doihavetoreally »

That's a Houdini-esque escape by K. Colin really played well. ..that's gotta hurt.

Another 11 here. I thought it was too easy- which is not good for FJ.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by doihavetoreally »

elijahjt wrote:
I wonder, does Jeopardy! have clues along the lines of "This is the X that also fits Y limitation", when the solution satisfies "This is the X" alone? I didn't think they went for such trick questions, but do they?
What?
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Category 13 »

I liked Colin from the moment he answered his first clue. He had a manner like he had waited for this game his whole life and he was on a mission.
Any other time, he would have been a multi-day champion. What a shame.

Kristin made the perfect wager, yet she seemed shocked only after Colin's final score was tabulated and Alex announced her the winner. Which has me wondering if the delayed reaction was just for the cameras? I've heard that the contestants get coached on drama in some instances.
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by elijahjt »

doihavetoreally wrote:
elijahjt wrote:
I wonder, does Jeopardy! have clues along the lines of "This is the X that also fits Y limitation", when the solution satisfies "This is the X" alone? I didn't think they went for such trick questions, but do they?
What?
The clue today was essentially [slight rewording here] This is the smallest two-digit prime number whose digits are themselves prime numbers.

If 11 were the answer (i.e. if 1 were a prime number), the clue could have just been "This is the smallest two-digit prime number". I'm curious if Jeopardy! has a habit of asking questions where the clue has an unnecessary limitation (in this hypothetical, "whose digits are themselves prime numbers").
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Re: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by KazooJ!fan »

That was a good game. Colin was an excellent player, and he made Kristin work for every penny she earned today.

That FJ was NOT my favorite category. When Alex said, "Numbers", I groaned. I guessed 11 and was wrong. It's one of my worst nightmares-I get on J! and they have a math category for FJ. Math is one of my weak spots.
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