Another Silly puzzle

[Raj Lal]

1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + 1/6 + 1/7 + 1/8 ...... When will the sum of this series exceed 100 ? Will it EVER ? For the thinkers, Why does a candle extinguishes when we blow on it? (Never paid attention to it, right?) Looks simple but it isn't ! * you are right, this guy has got nothing to do... but if you read this we are in the same boat --- My Unedited article^

[Wjousts]

Quartz... wrote:

For the thinkers, Why does a candle extinguishes when we blow on it? (Never paid attention to it, right?) Looks simple but it isn't !

Because you are blowing away the fuel for the flame, i.e. the vaporized candle wax.

[Chris Losinger]

ugh. i hated series summations in school. hated them almost as much as i hated statistics. for the candle..i'll guess that blowing on it removes a pocket of very hot gas at the base of the flame. without that, the heat of the ember at the top of the wick just isn't hot enough. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker

[Nish Nishant]

Quartz... wrote:

Why does a candle extinguishes when we blow on it?

We blow the air away creating a small vacuum pocket and a fire cannot burn in a vacuum. That's my guess anyway :-) Regards, Nish

---

Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
The Ultimate Grid - The #1 MFC grid out there!

[Smitha Nishant]

Nishant Sivakumar wrote:

blow the air away creating a small vacuum pocket

:omg::omg::omg: Every problem has a gift for you in its hands. -- Richard Bach

[Nish Nishant]

Quartz... wrote:

1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + 1/6 + 1/7 + 1/8 ......

Tried it till INT_MAX and only got just past 21 :-( Regards, Nish

---

Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
The Ultimate Grid - The #1 MFC grid out there!

[Jon Sagara]

Quartz... wrote:

When will the sum of this series exceed 100 ?

e100? Jon Sagara When I grow up, I'm changing my name to Joe Kickass! My Site | My Blog | My Articles -- modified at 15:12 Tuesday 9th May, 2006

[QuiJohn]

After 5 billion it's only up to about 21.9. It could be a while. :)

[Chris Losinger]

do you know how airplane wings work? Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker

[Nish Nishant]

Chris Losinger wrote:

do you know how airplane wings work?

That works on the vacuum principle too, eh? Regards, Nish

---

Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
The Ultimate Grid - The #1 MFC grid out there!

[Russell Morris]

The series for e^x is more complicated than that: e^x = 1 + x + x^2/2! + x^3/3! + ... + x^n/n! + ... where n is an integer and goes from 0 to infinity If you differentiate term n of this series, you find that you get term n-1 as a result. That's why the derivative of e^x is still e^x :) I always liked that for some reason.

[Richard Andrew x64]

The sum will never even reach the number 1, much less exceed 100. And the candle gets extinguished from the carbon dioxide in our breath. Rich ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸

[Chris Losinger]

Nishant Sivakumar wrote:

That works on the vacuum principle too, eh?

a wing will create small pockets of (partial) vacuum as air moves around it. it's under debate as to whether this is the actual source of lift or not. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker

[Raj Lal]

You got it right. Here is your prize Up [^] --- My Unedited article^

[Wjousts]

Funny, 'cos I'm up to 34000000000 or so and I've got a total of nearly 24 which is clearly more than 1. Look at the sequence more carefully. It's not 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 +....

[Nish Nishant]

Troposphere wrote:

The sum will never even reach the number 1, much less exceed 100.

You are kidding, right? :omg: It crosses 1 after the 3rd fraction in the series. 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 = 1.08333 Regards, Nish

---

Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
The Ultimate Grid - The #1 MFC grid out there!

[Wjousts]

Woohoo! Now that's a big candle. Need a lot of puff to blow that one out. That's what she said ;)

[Raj Lal]

Troposphere wrote:

And the candle gets extinguished from the carbon dioxide in our breath.

And if you blow air by some other method it won't ? --- My Unedited article^

[Dan Neely]

I want to say this is a nonconverging series, but it's been a long time since I did those in math, and google ignores /'s even when they're inside of quotes.

[Raj Lal]

OK lets divide it in two parts Question 1

Quartz... wrote:

When will the sum of this series exceed 100 ?

Question 2

Quartz... wrote:

Will it EVER ?

simple looking problems, are sometimes the most challenging ones. --- My Unedited article^