Friday 27 May 2011

MIT Puzzle

Ron Rivest, of MIT, has revealed a puzzle today.
And this puzzle involves some very big numbers.
The biggest number of the bunch is 2279685186856218, which you need to divide by another number and find the remainder.
Yes, 2 to the power of almost 280 trillion.
Google calculator can't handle that.
New scientist tells us it's 74 quadrillion digits long.
What if you wanted to solve the puzzle by hand?
First you'd need to write out this problem.
Let's say you teamed up with everyone else on the planet to write it down.
And you can all write a digit every second.
The number would take 12 and a half days to write down.
And the you have to start with the long division.





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91 Comments:

At 27 May 2011 at 13:10 , Blogger Acrylic Ingenuity said...

crazy! great post

 
At 27 May 2011 at 13:16 , Blogger srnajera said...

awesome info :O

 
At 27 May 2011 at 13:20 , Blogger RedHeadRob said...

holy crap 0.0

 
At 27 May 2011 at 13:43 , Blogger Thorfan said...

Mit sure knows how to take the fun out of math..

 
At 27 May 2011 at 13:52 , Blogger D-503 said...

I went and had a look at the solution. It's awesome! Thanks for sharing...

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:04 , Blogger Empty said...

wow.... :O

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:04 , Blogger kxxthanxx said...

hed hurtz

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:10 , Blogger Michelangelo said...

Too bad i don't like math that much :(

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:29 , Blogger Pool Fool said...

don't get it

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:31 , Blogger Miyamoto Karyuu said...

Holy Sh-! I suck at maths and this is totally outta my hand.. lol

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:32 , Blogger Malkavian said...

DAAAAAAAAMN 12 days just to write it down. I still dont find the logic on solving a problem that is unlikely to have any real world application.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:52 , Blogger irdumb2 said...

nuomg haha

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:54 , Blogger zepdragon said...

This makes my head hurt....

 
At 27 May 2011 at 14:58 , Blogger Bart said...

12 days to write a number... write faster?

 
At 27 May 2011 at 15:00 , Blogger D4 said...

o____o I say f*** that s***

 
At 27 May 2011 at 15:15 , Blogger Astronomy Pirate said...

I guess my next year will be occupied...

 
At 27 May 2011 at 15:17 , Blogger Trolske said...

Seriously..this MIT guy has to much spare time :D

 
At 27 May 2011 at 15:42 , Blogger HiFi said...

amazing!

 
At 27 May 2011 at 16:13 , Blogger James said...

How about 5 to the 98933294729374234098203... Yea that's right... I just stated a much bigger number.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 16:28 , Blogger Come At Me Bro said...

This is great!

 
At 27 May 2011 at 17:16 , Blogger Mest said...

My God, Why would they design this puzzle?

 
At 27 May 2011 at 17:19 , Blogger pv said...

the new IBM Supercomputer being released soon could easily handle this

 
At 27 May 2011 at 17:20 , Blogger mindlessfrk said...

Big numbers are big :O

 
At 27 May 2011 at 17:26 , Blogger ♥ Fluttershy ♥ said...

Oh boy I forgot how one handled those numbers already. My math teacher would kill me and I was a A+ math student :P

 
At 27 May 2011 at 17:40 , Blogger thomau5 said...

my head hurts...

 
At 27 May 2011 at 18:08 , Blogger Nope said...

Oh god, and they solved it?

 
At 27 May 2011 at 18:11 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's insane, but I bet someone will try to solve the puzzle.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 18:13 , Blogger themajessty said...

Wow.

Did I mention I loathe math?

This is scary.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 18:43 , Blogger Unknown said...

huh?

 
At 27 May 2011 at 19:05 , Blogger Jay said...

wat

 
At 27 May 2011 at 19:24 , Blogger Fermium Death said...

I will chop my head off if I will ever try to solve that manually.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 19:29 , Blogger Godlike said...

Interesting read it boggles my mind so many numbers.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 19:40 , Blogger Jesse Crows said...

oh jeez my head is hurting

 
At 27 May 2011 at 19:55 , Blogger tony said...

hmmm wonder if i can ask google...?

 
At 27 May 2011 at 20:17 , Blogger adss said...

wow that is insane!

 
At 27 May 2011 at 20:25 , Blogger TIMMYTHEROBOT said...

that's nuts dude

 
At 27 May 2011 at 20:35 , Blogger Mercurio said...

geeky puzzle

 
At 27 May 2011 at 20:49 , Blogger Tomas.G said...

Amazing.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 21:03 , Blogger Zach said...

That's what I'd call a hard math problem

 
At 27 May 2011 at 21:40 , Blogger Unknown said...

this is one of the most interesting blogs i've come across... thanks for finding me.. i definitely benefit

 
At 27 May 2011 at 21:45 , Blogger Doc_Waffles said...

Wow that's crazy. MIT is a school full of awesome stuff like this.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 22:03 , Blogger LiquorKing said...

that's quite a long number!

 
At 27 May 2011 at 22:38 , Blogger Roysizzle said...

what the hell? Why would you even..

 
At 27 May 2011 at 23:03 , Blogger Stephen said...

Lol, that's completely wack. I can't believe that there's people in the world who actually do stuff like that.

 
At 27 May 2011 at 23:06 , Blogger Carles said...

headache only reading lol

 
At 27 May 2011 at 23:08 , Blogger Moobeat said...

wat

 
At 27 May 2011 at 23:10 , Blogger gman said...

interesting... You should do a post about perfect numbers, and the biggest perfect number. I used to be obsessed about them

 
At 27 May 2011 at 23:19 , Blogger Jeff said...

Puzzles made to proclaim that they are indeed smarter than us. Damn pricks ruining maths and the little feelings of self-pride that we get when we solve a problem which is the equivalent of 2+2=4 to this puzzle

 
At 27 May 2011 at 23:35 , Blogger Jay said...

I hope no one has tried to find the answer. haha

 
At 27 May 2011 at 23:41 , Blogger baka1236 said...

dear god o.0

 
At 27 May 2011 at 23:54 , Blogger phosports said...

those are really big numbers

 
At 28 May 2011 at 00:24 , Blogger evldmn said...

I've heard that if you fold a piece in paper hundred times it's gonna be as long as the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 01:01 , Blogger Speedy Ed said...

this is crazzayy :O nice post

 
At 28 May 2011 at 01:19 , Blogger wellpickedbooger said...

"The number would take 12 and a half days to write down." Sounds like a great reason to throw a party!

 
At 28 May 2011 at 01:19 , Blogger Domino said...

The guys from MIT are crazy little nerds and most of them will earn more money in the future than I :( ^^

 
At 28 May 2011 at 01:21 , Blogger paulz said...

Very good article very perplexing.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 01:25 , Blogger pietah said...

it's 3

 
At 28 May 2011 at 02:29 , Blogger Unknown said...

thats crazy! ahh the wonders of maths!

 
At 28 May 2011 at 03:11 , Blogger Fr8lovers said...

high stuff for my brain in the morning :D

 
At 28 May 2011 at 03:45 , Blogger Sam DeCross said...

I want to step foot in MIT, so I too can say "You simple people are inferior."

 
At 28 May 2011 at 03:56 , Blogger dalexus said...

mathematic rules

 
At 28 May 2011 at 04:08 , Blogger //Love said...

Those numbers...

 
At 28 May 2011 at 04:22 , Blogger Michael said...

Wow that is...beyond ridiculous. I don't think "big" is justifiable enough word to describe that number.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 04:31 , Blogger Mook said...

This is amazing :)

 
At 28 May 2011 at 04:41 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Rofl that's crazy, and awesome.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 04:46 , Blogger BTN Hip Hop said...

god thats big math

 
At 28 May 2011 at 05:49 , Blogger Lily@FaunMusic said...

Oh god... maths and stuff! My head will explain! AAAAAAH ^.^

 
At 28 May 2011 at 06:14 , Blogger Daniel said...

that's insane

 
At 28 May 2011 at 06:15 , Blogger Solsby Kid said...

They solved it?!

 
At 28 May 2011 at 06:21 , Blogger JayPower said...

Damn this puzzle sounds hard!! ;D

 
At 28 May 2011 at 06:32 , Blogger Rich said...

that's insane

 
At 28 May 2011 at 06:49 , Blogger Unknown said...

great post man

 
At 28 May 2011 at 07:51 , Blogger Dola said...

lol thats hilarious

 
At 28 May 2011 at 08:28 , Blogger Dave said...

Thats some larger than large calculation lol.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 10:28 , Blogger Kicking Rocks said...

thats alot of numbers!

 
At 28 May 2011 at 10:43 , Blogger Lesha said...

THAT IS BRILLIANT!!! following for sure and putting in favorites. Great numbers NEED understanding.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 11:04 , Anonymous Fortune said...

Is it really a puzzle if it only takes a long time because of the mechanics in place to solve it?

 
At 28 May 2011 at 12:02 , Blogger Ante Babaja said...

damn, my brain is dead xD

 
At 28 May 2011 at 12:46 , Blogger TK1927 said...

I came up with that problem when I was a janitor at MIT. Also, my best friend is Ben Affleck.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 12:47 , Blogger JkF50 said...

Holy Jesus! That's insane! I love facts like this! Brilliant

 
At 28 May 2011 at 13:24 , Blogger Doro said...

Holy shit! Awesome!

 
At 28 May 2011 at 14:02 , Blogger srnajera said...

w000ww awwesomee :P

 
At 28 May 2011 at 14:19 , Blogger Mehmet said...

SH!!!T thats huge !

 
At 28 May 2011 at 14:42 , Blogger ed said...

is there a point to solving a number that big?

 
At 28 May 2011 at 14:51 , Blogger Poetry of the Day said...

im not worthy
Robert Frost | Poetry

 
At 28 May 2011 at 17:48 , Blogger Simon black said...

as always, very cool and interesting stuff that you didn't know. keep up the good work.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 17:58 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

2^279685186856218 ??

My head is about to explode.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 19:03 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

haha, that is a really big number.

 
At 28 May 2011 at 22:12 , Blogger Lt Nite said...

Yet another reason I hate math, makes mah head hurt =[

 
At 28 May 2011 at 23:57 , Blogger NorthernLad said...

And I have issues with normal math problems... Damn.

 
At 30 May 2011 at 16:37 , Blogger fit4life said...

that is INSANE.

 

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