I read the link. I assume that "I want to stamp out that story" refers to the story that H, A and L are letters left-adjacent to I, B and M.
Is that the right assumption to make? Clark said HAL = heuristic algorithmic, but that doesn't refer to anything because it's two adjectives. Also, your assumption was built on what he wrote in Odyssey II, which was Heuristic ALgorithmic. The probability that AL follows any letter is 0. The odds that HAL was devised from IBM is 0, and that was what he stated. Thus, both of you computed the wrong thing. I do admit I understand your computation, but there is no mathematical way to get his. There is a product space inherent in this problem that has no residue subspace, but 263 is prime, and can't form anything but degenerate spaces and itself. The diophantine equation, (ax+by)*(cz+dw)*(er+fs) = 263, can't be solved in integers except degenerately. |
