Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Givental
Carl, here https://math.berkeley.edu/~giventh/mirrors.pdf I posted on the web three pictures. … The bottom picture adapts the photo that Ralph sent to us to the case of three pairwise perpendicular mirrors, and shows one of possible (depending on the position of the observer) positions of the 8 images of the candle. |
Cool. The bottom picture is just what I needed. If it shows one real candle and seven reflections, then I finally understand. The penny has dropped, as the British say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Givental
As about the red herring: why? I said from the start that it is a math, not word challenge. … my hint was fair: these two "mirrors" produce not 2 copies of the original text but 3. And the hint worked for Sarah-Jane!
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Ok, all I can do is speak for myself. If you had left the poem out and asked, not how many iPhones there are, but how many reflections, I wouldn’t have known the answer, but I would have known where to look for it. I ended up on a wild goose chase, but the chase was fun, and I learned something that I should have learned in the third grade, so all I can do is say thank you.
Carl