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From: gordon@warwick.UUCP (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers,net.cog-eng,net.ai
Subject: Re: alive computers (HAL_from_IBM_P)
Message-ID: <276@euclid.warwick.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-Apr-86 08:41:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: euclid.276
Posted: Wed Apr 23 08:41:01 1986
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Reply-To: gordon@euclid.UUCP (Gordon Joly)
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Organization: Maths Institute, Warwick University, UK
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Keywords: creativity
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In article <1800@mtgzz.UUCP> Mark leeper says:-

> I talked to Clarke about 2001 in 1969 and he brought up the HAL/IBM
> question himself.  He said that it was just a surprising coincidence.

With odds of 1/8788 against, maybe it was more a case of subconscious
reasoning, as in Kekule's discovery of the structure of the benzene
molecule, and in the deciphering of Samuel Pepys' diaries. And the odds 
must also take into account strings like S*X or BCA, musn't they?

Gordon Joly {seismo,decvax,ucbvax}!mcvax!ukc!warwick!gordon
School of Mathematics, Queen Mary College, London.

P.S. Why are the odds (26**3)/2 anyway?