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To: jim black who wrote (31476)	4/14/2003 3:17:01 PM
From: smolejv@gmx.net	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

My reaction at the end was (shame of course and), "oh wth, now you know, why everybody needs a defense budget". On a different subject - continued fractions (hear hear; - told by Mahalanobis()) On another occasion, I went to his room to have lunch with him. The First World War had started some time earlier. I had in my hand a copy of the monthly "Strand Magazine" which at that time used to publish a number of puzzles to be solved by readers. Ramanujan was stirring something in a pan over the fire for our lunch. I was sitting near the table, turning over the pages of the Magazine. I got interested in a problem involving a relation between two numbers, I have forgotten the details; but I remember the type of the problem. Two British officers had been billeted in Paris in two different houses in a long street; the door numbers of these houses were related in a special way; the problem was to find out the two numbers. It was not at all difficult - I got the solution in a few minutes by trial and error. MAHALANOBIS (in a joking way); Now here is a problem for you. RAMANUJAN: What problem, tell me. (He went on stirring the pan.) I read out the question from the "Strand Magazine". RAMANUJAN: Please take down the solution. (He dictated a continued fraction.) The first term was the solution which I had obtained- Each successive term represented successive solutions for the same type of relation between two numbers, as the number of houses in the street would increase indefinitely. I was amazed. MAHALANOBIS: Did you get the solution in a flash? RAMANUJAN: Immediately after I heard the problem, it was clear that the solution was obviously a continued fraction. I then thought, "Which continued fraction?" and the answer came to my mind. It was just as simple as this. from Hofstadter Gödel Escher Bach () Mahalanobis - like in "Mahalanobis Distance"?...