Garthor wrote:

Again, you can't just pretend that the parameters of a problem are different because you can't figure out the answer and "Negative numbers don't make sense!"

Can you describe why not, or is this such a deeply ingrained belief of yours that you no longer bother to question such things?

Mentioning the space shuttle is quite a spectacular non-sequitur.

Says the fellow who just brought up a ridiculous Einstein-related jab. I bet I could find a quote or two from the man himself that would set your teeth on edge. For example:

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."� - Albert Einstein.

Mighty familiar sentiment there, my deceased college!

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
"Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."

And so on. The thing you have to understand about Einstein is he would encounter people like you who felt that "energy" needed to be explained by 40 blackboards of formula, clear his throat, and counter with E=MC^2. Why? Because these people failed to question the problem. Einstein is a bad example for putting me down in this situation.

I wonder if we can find some quotes from great men that urge us to hold onto conventional thinking as if our lives depended on it? At the very least, I bet we could find some quotes from some legendarily petty and small ones.

If you weren't so insistent on your point I'd say that you were just being a troll. You're just so unbelievably insane.

Coming from a fellow who savors being trapped in his mental boxes, I'll take that as a complement.

From your problem solving capacity, I suspect you've an excellent mind. You should really let it out of its pen once in awhile. (No, I'm not recommending drug use - perhaps mindfulness meditation.)

Garthor wrote:

The story about dogs and such is completely meaningless and has nothing to do with the actual problem except to possibly make it easier to understand, though it quite apparently failed miserably in your case.

You silly man, why do you think I wrote:

"What I was saying just now is that you're willing to overlook this because the problem in itself is delicious to solve within these arbitrary parameters. Besides, it's not to say that there won't be a perfectly valid set of parameters to match the knapsack problem."

Now that you see that, can you imagine why I nonetheless brought up the point to the contrary? I somewhat spelled it out back in post #64, but maybe not as clearly as you needed.

Garthor wrote:

I think you wrote that because you are insane and unable to properly distinguish between relevant and irrelevant data.

If you brand anything that does not jive with the contents of your head as insanity, you're sure to suit the definition of the word.

This is not hyperbole. I literally think that this is the case.

Good for you (if a tad redundant).

Well, that or you just got the crazy idea of rebelling against EVERYTHING, man, even, like, logic, dude...

Rebelling against everything? No. Questioning everything: yes.

After all, premises which are never questioned make for shoddy, sophomoric logic, at best.

Let me tell you a little thing about genius: if it was easy for you to understand, if it were the path of least resistance that comes from accepting everything at face value, if it shirked thinking outside conventional thought for fear of being labeled unpopular or even insane, then it most definitely would not be true genius.

So, let me explain this to you once again:

Here you have a problem that is, by several experienced individual's assessment (your own included) largely unsolvable. "Chasing windmills."

In that event, I propose questioning the problem.

You got an issue with that? Enjoy your unsolvable problem, then.

Garthor wrote:

Unsolvable problems can be just as interesting as solvable ones.

No argument there.

Dismissing (and totally changing) a problem simply because you deem it to be unsolvable is intellectually dishonest.

Ah, but here's the thing: if the problem is unsolvable because, under closer examination, it is based on faulty premises, then it is intellectually dishonest to perpetuate the delusion.

An idea is an interesting thing in that it exists solely in one place: in your mind, as only an abstraction of reality. To become overly beholden to an idea, as it amuses you, only distances one from the truth.

Of course, this problem was rather obviously not unsolvable. Finding a polynomial-time solution probably is, but that's not the same thing.

Give me some credit here: what do you think I was really referring to, knowing that I already mentioned the brute force solution?

Your claims to genius would be more credible if you didn't take a relatively interesting problem and turn it into, literally, "just add all the numbers up!"

So, describing genius is the same as claiming it to you, is it?

In any case, perhaps you should investigate my motives as to why I felt this would be a good solution before you claim I harbor a desire towards intellectual dishonesty.

Because, in application, until a true answer to the knapsack problem is found, I would rather have a correct answer than a fast one.

Garthor wrote:

What? I have no clue what your motives were for pretending to solve a problem by turning it into a completely unrelated problem.

I was demonstrating how an unsolvable math problem can become easily solvable by simply examining the specific details of a given example and logically surmising what the numbers have failed to represent. Much like division by zero.

As for a your comment on the knapsack problem, I don't think you know how it works. There exists a pseudo-polynomial solution to the knapsack problem, which means that it's polynomial with respect to the value of the input rather than its length and really just wikipedia it if you care. The solution is still entirely correct, and the issue is that there ISN'T a fast solution, not that there's a fast but incorrect one.

I said I would rather have a correct answer than a fast one.

You reply by saying there is a correct answer, but not a fast one.

Your pseudo-polynomial solution located on Wikipedia is all very nice and elegant, but it hasn't changed the situation much.

FYI, I was actually looking at that solution earlier on Wikipedia before you even mentioned it. I noticed that it mentioned it would not work with negative integers and disregarded it per the problem proposed by AirJoe as that included negative integers. The second solution has the same restriction. You would have to apply at least rule 1 of my suggested workarounds, redefining the problem, to get any use out of those algorithms at all. (This is mentioned at the end of rule 1 as "the unbounded knapsack solution" as per its title in Wikipedia - see post #68. I recommended against this because, under closer examination, I could see the results produced would be worthless anyway.)

Hulio-G wrote:

This argument is like wisdom(Geldon) vs smarts(Garthor). You two never really speak the same game.

An unusually good observation for a casual Internet observer. ;)

It's not necessarily that Garthor lacks wisdom or I lack smarts, but upon taking the stance we did on the acceptable means of solving the problem, we certainly took those sides.

derp i went to school today

SmashTiger wrote:

Does it need to be in DM?

Nice necro, read the comments. I think it was decided that the only solution was through dynamic programming.

SmashTiger wrote:

Jeff8500 wrote:

SmashTiger wrote:

Does it need to be in DM?

Nice necro, read the comments. I think it was decided that the only solution was through dynamic programming.

Unless the contest was actually decided, I see no harm in commenting on an ongoing competition.

Anyways, I skimmed the comments.

It was decided. It's unsolvable without a computer with ~10 TBs of RAM.

EDIT: Also, way to read my last comment, in which I said it was decided.

SmashTiger wrote:

Jeff8500 wrote:

SmashTiger wrote:

Jeff8500 wrote:

SmashTiger wrote:

Does it need to be in DM?

Nice necro, read the comments. I think it was decided that the only solution was through dynamic programming.

Unless the contest was actually decided, I see no harm in commenting on an ongoing competition.

Anyways, I skimmed the comments.

It was decided. It's unsolvable without a computer with ~10 TBs of RAM.

EDIT: Also, way to read my last comment, in which I said it was decided.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming

I read it. Dynamic programming doesn't mean it's unsolvable.

That's not what I meant; I meant that that was the only possible solution we could come up with that could work. Either way, I'm pretty sure it was already decided to be an NP problem, meaning that it's near impossible to solve, especially with only modern computers (though at some point it does become impossible).