Post by The Revered Inventor on Apr 28, 2013 13:50:55 GMT -5
Candidate: Heimerdinger
Date: 6 October, 19 CLE
OBSERVATION
Heimerdinger's entrance into the great hall causes a slight disturbance in the atmosphere. It doesn't help that the wrenches in his head keep giving off slight shocks of static in the air. His large golden head bobbles slightly as the Inventor himself moves forward, spinning a wrench in one hand and putting the other in his left coat pocket.
His head bobbles even more as the Inventor looks up at the large marble doors that lead into the Reflection Chamber, his focusing lens moving down over his left eye to analyze any features that might be of interest of them. He notices a pattern on the doors, and begins to try to find if there is any mathematical symmetry; as if to interrupt his thinking, the doors open inwards, and Heimerdinger grimaces, having been disrupted from his work. He shakes it off, however, and makes his way inside.
REFLECTION
The place was white. There was no end to be seen in any direction, vertically or horizontally; even the ground, which seemed transparent, had no visible end. It was as if he were floating in space. Heimerdinger looked around, trying to see if there was… well, anything that would signal to him what was to come.
For a while, nothing. The place stayed as white and blank as ever.
And then, all of a sudden, in front of him, a series of words appeared – it was an equation, one he had determined to be false, long ago. It looked to be like the Inventor’s writing, but something was strange – it was floating, as if an object in its own right, bobbing up and down in an invisible pool of liquid that Heimerdinger certainly knew he was not in.
Then another equation appeared; again proven false back in his college days, and another… and another. They sprang up all around him, as if they wanted the Inventor to go back to them, as if to say that they were actually valid equations, ideas that were initially seen to be false… but were actually true. This confused him; he had shown that these equations were not possible… but one equation stuck out to him, and it moved to just a few feet from his face.
‘Given that a, b, c, are all positive integer values, and that n is any positive integer value greater than two, can a^n+b^n=c^n?’
“Of course not!” He stated in a matter-of-factly voice. “The proof that the modularity theorem is correct shows…”
“But it doesn’t,” replied a voice that seemed to come from no-where; its tone was calm, collected. At the same moment, a gigantic check-mark was seemingly stamped from an invisible stamp over the statement, as if to signify that the correct answer was yes. Heimerdinger could only raise an eyebrow. He knew he had shown this to be incorrect; why would someone try to say that this was correct now?
Other equations he had shown to be false also got checks stamped out on top of them. He couldn’t believe this: had everything he had learned and shown when he was younger shown to now be false? It couldn’t be! The foundations for his work – all of it – were based on these very same equations and statements to be false. It was impossible; there was no way –
“But you fail to recognize a key fact, Heimerdinger,” the voice called out to him again. “There is one area of knowledge you fail to realize that can always trump science: magic.”
“Bloody goodness, you know that the two can never be compared!” Heimerdinger shouted back out, almost as if it were in vain.
“How do you know?”
“It’s simple, really. The-“
“But it’s not so simple, Inventor,” the voice asserted, and at that moment all of the seemingly correct equations disappeared. Heimerdinger now found himself surrounded by walls filled with rows and columns filled with numbers; orderly, but so many of them! The numbers than began to randomly scramble, blinking as they did so. It appeared that there was some sort of pattern he had to figure out from the changing numbers.
“What you need to find is simple: what do these numbers mean? One statement is given: it is equally fast to be able to show that the problem has a solution and finding the solution itself. Show that your work is valid, too. By the way, do you think you can beat the time it takes for a magical scholar to figure it out?” The voice spoke out, as if taunting the Inventor.
He gave out a chuckle in reply. “I’ve done this before, and I can do it again.” Immediately, he turned his head up to look at the numbers, his brilliant mind already at work.
"3-1-7-3, 4-6-2-9, 3-1-4-2…"
“Sorry, but I can already tell you method is not correct,” the voice chimed in.
"2-8-2-8, 4-3-7…" Heimerdinger continued to think in his mind, not paying any attention to what the voice was trying to say.
“…alright, have it your way.”
"1-5-3-7, 6-8-1-4, 4-6-9-0, 3-2-4-7, 2-3-5-3, 1-5-7-8, 0-1-2-5, 9-3-7-4…"
“Already solved it,” the voice went off in his head. As if to make its point clear, a paper appeared out of seemingly nothing, simply labeled ‘solution.’ Heimerdinger didn’t even bother to give it any further look; rather, he continued on with his line of thinking, still confident it would work.
“1-4-6-7, 1-2-5-2, 1-2, 2-4-6-8-2-2-4-6-7-9, 1-2-5-6-2-9… dang it, ‘1-9-0-3’ is a contradiction.” His original line of thinking had a flaw. It was not correct.
“Give up?” the voice taunted.
Heimerdinger shook his head. “A true thinker never gives up; he may fail a trillion times, but it’s the will that matters.” With that, he continued to look for other avenues to perhaps find a solution, looking at each of the wall of numbers carefully, trying to find anything… anything that could yield an eventual way to a solution.
“4-6-3-8-3… no, that won’t work.”
“1-8-6-3-2-5-7… ugh, that has a contradiction already…”
“1-4-6-8-9-1-3-8… blarney, if that were true it would render a proof I know is correct to be false! Hrmmm…”
“Perhaps, if I tried 7-4-2-5-7-8-3-1-9-0… no, no, no!”
Heimerdinger took his right hand used it to take out one of his wrenches, upon which he raised it and threw it to the ground in despair. None of the methods he knew of to be able to tackle this problem worked! It was as if he had finally stumbled onto that one problem that science and invention couldn’t solve… was the voice true? Could he have been wrong all this time? Could there exist a problem that could only be solved by way of magical means?
“Well, it appears your assumption that science can solve anything might not be true, after all,” the voice commented. “Well, the easy way out is still there for you to look at, just one page flip, and your mind can finally be put to rest. Admitting defeat is no wrong decision you know.”
Heimerdinger sighed, looking down, despondent.
“Perhaps, I was… overconfident… arrogant… but why would it be so that one way to find a solution would be so much more capable than?-”
“Ay, that is not for us to know,” the voice replied. "It is for us to just accept that things are the way they are."
At this, Heimerdinger looked right back at the boards, a new will re-surging back into him. “NO! I will not let that be an acceptable answer! The foundation of science is that there is always an answer to everything; chance cannot be the answer here!”
“But you’ve already given up on finding an answer.”
“No… that’s what you hope for it to be. Now, there has to be a way… but how?-”
Then it came to him – the flash of insight, the moment of the elixir of brilliance – it as if it were almost a miracle. The wrenches in his head gave off a bolt of lightning between the two, as if to signify that the realization came to him. As if on cue, he began going through the revealed pathway of numbers in his mind, looking for their locations on the board.
“…8-4-9-4…”
“…6-3-7…”
And the beginning of the solution finally came to him. “…9-1-4-0-3-4.”
“…that’s it. 9-1-4-0-3-4.” He walked up to the board where the numbers were, and putting his fingers to point out the numbers. “91-26-35. There it is. The solution.”
“Now, now, Inventor, how could you just go-” The voice in his mind began to protest, but Heimerdinger cut him off.
“It’s simple, really! The assumption you gave me to start it all off was incorrect.”
“That’s impossible! Otherwise the-”
“No, it is incorrect. You have the assumption that the time it takes to determine whether the problem has a solution is the same as finding the solution itself. Not that it is not true: it’s just that it hasn’t been proven yet.”
“And there… lies the flaw. Assuming something that shouldn’t be.”
“And why is that?” The voice shot back.
“Because that is the one thing that makes science more capable than magic: magic is used without a definitive capability. Science always knows its limits. And that, my friend, is why my solution – 9-1-4-0-3-4 – is correct.”
“How does it feel, exposing your mind?” The voice then spoke.
He blinked, but before he could reply, the walls had seemingly vanished, the giant space of white nowhere to be found. When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the institute.
However, Heimerdinger was still smiling, as wide as ever.
“You never exposed my mind, sir: that’s what you think you’ve done. All you did was learn how to be out-done by the power of scientific knowledge.”
The voice seemed to give off a grunt, as if frustrated at its inability to be able to shake Heimerdinger's confidence in the end.
"Why do you want to join the League, Inventor?"
"For a similar reason: to show that scientific knowledge is far more practical than you think," Heimerdinger replied, the smile on his face growing wider.
With that, he looked behind his back one last time to see he really was where he was, and satisfied to see the same marble doors that led into the reflection chamber, he turned forward, and confidently strode into the league.
Science was on the march.
And it was time to show its true potential.
Date: 6 October, 19 CLE
OBSERVATION
Heimerdinger's entrance into the great hall causes a slight disturbance in the atmosphere. It doesn't help that the wrenches in his head keep giving off slight shocks of static in the air. His large golden head bobbles slightly as the Inventor himself moves forward, spinning a wrench in one hand and putting the other in his left coat pocket.
His head bobbles even more as the Inventor looks up at the large marble doors that lead into the Reflection Chamber, his focusing lens moving down over his left eye to analyze any features that might be of interest of them. He notices a pattern on the doors, and begins to try to find if there is any mathematical symmetry; as if to interrupt his thinking, the doors open inwards, and Heimerdinger grimaces, having been disrupted from his work. He shakes it off, however, and makes his way inside.
REFLECTION
The place was white. There was no end to be seen in any direction, vertically or horizontally; even the ground, which seemed transparent, had no visible end. It was as if he were floating in space. Heimerdinger looked around, trying to see if there was… well, anything that would signal to him what was to come.
For a while, nothing. The place stayed as white and blank as ever.
And then, all of a sudden, in front of him, a series of words appeared – it was an equation, one he had determined to be false, long ago. It looked to be like the Inventor’s writing, but something was strange – it was floating, as if an object in its own right, bobbing up and down in an invisible pool of liquid that Heimerdinger certainly knew he was not in.
Then another equation appeared; again proven false back in his college days, and another… and another. They sprang up all around him, as if they wanted the Inventor to go back to them, as if to say that they were actually valid equations, ideas that were initially seen to be false… but were actually true. This confused him; he had shown that these equations were not possible… but one equation stuck out to him, and it moved to just a few feet from his face.
‘Given that a, b, c, are all positive integer values, and that n is any positive integer value greater than two, can a^n+b^n=c^n?’
“Of course not!” He stated in a matter-of-factly voice. “The proof that the modularity theorem is correct shows…”
“But it doesn’t,” replied a voice that seemed to come from no-where; its tone was calm, collected. At the same moment, a gigantic check-mark was seemingly stamped from an invisible stamp over the statement, as if to signify that the correct answer was yes. Heimerdinger could only raise an eyebrow. He knew he had shown this to be incorrect; why would someone try to say that this was correct now?
Other equations he had shown to be false also got checks stamped out on top of them. He couldn’t believe this: had everything he had learned and shown when he was younger shown to now be false? It couldn’t be! The foundations for his work – all of it – were based on these very same equations and statements to be false. It was impossible; there was no way –
“But you fail to recognize a key fact, Heimerdinger,” the voice called out to him again. “There is one area of knowledge you fail to realize that can always trump science: magic.”
“Bloody goodness, you know that the two can never be compared!” Heimerdinger shouted back out, almost as if it were in vain.
“How do you know?”
“It’s simple, really. The-“
“But it’s not so simple, Inventor,” the voice asserted, and at that moment all of the seemingly correct equations disappeared. Heimerdinger now found himself surrounded by walls filled with rows and columns filled with numbers; orderly, but so many of them! The numbers than began to randomly scramble, blinking as they did so. It appeared that there was some sort of pattern he had to figure out from the changing numbers.
“What you need to find is simple: what do these numbers mean? One statement is given: it is equally fast to be able to show that the problem has a solution and finding the solution itself. Show that your work is valid, too. By the way, do you think you can beat the time it takes for a magical scholar to figure it out?” The voice spoke out, as if taunting the Inventor.
He gave out a chuckle in reply. “I’ve done this before, and I can do it again.” Immediately, he turned his head up to look at the numbers, his brilliant mind already at work.
"3-1-7-3, 4-6-2-9, 3-1-4-2…"
“Sorry, but I can already tell you method is not correct,” the voice chimed in.
"2-8-2-8, 4-3-7…" Heimerdinger continued to think in his mind, not paying any attention to what the voice was trying to say.
“…alright, have it your way.”
"1-5-3-7, 6-8-1-4, 4-6-9-0, 3-2-4-7, 2-3-5-3, 1-5-7-8, 0-1-2-5, 9-3-7-4…"
“Already solved it,” the voice went off in his head. As if to make its point clear, a paper appeared out of seemingly nothing, simply labeled ‘solution.’ Heimerdinger didn’t even bother to give it any further look; rather, he continued on with his line of thinking, still confident it would work.
“1-4-6-7, 1-2-5-2, 1-2, 2-4-6-8-2-2-4-6-7-9, 1-2-5-6-2-9… dang it, ‘1-9-0-3’ is a contradiction.” His original line of thinking had a flaw. It was not correct.
“Give up?” the voice taunted.
Heimerdinger shook his head. “A true thinker never gives up; he may fail a trillion times, but it’s the will that matters.” With that, he continued to look for other avenues to perhaps find a solution, looking at each of the wall of numbers carefully, trying to find anything… anything that could yield an eventual way to a solution.
“4-6-3-8-3… no, that won’t work.”
“1-8-6-3-2-5-7… ugh, that has a contradiction already…”
“1-4-6-8-9-1-3-8… blarney, if that were true it would render a proof I know is correct to be false! Hrmmm…”
“Perhaps, if I tried 7-4-2-5-7-8-3-1-9-0… no, no, no!”
Heimerdinger took his right hand used it to take out one of his wrenches, upon which he raised it and threw it to the ground in despair. None of the methods he knew of to be able to tackle this problem worked! It was as if he had finally stumbled onto that one problem that science and invention couldn’t solve… was the voice true? Could he have been wrong all this time? Could there exist a problem that could only be solved by way of magical means?
“Well, it appears your assumption that science can solve anything might not be true, after all,” the voice commented. “Well, the easy way out is still there for you to look at, just one page flip, and your mind can finally be put to rest. Admitting defeat is no wrong decision you know.”
Heimerdinger sighed, looking down, despondent.
“Perhaps, I was… overconfident… arrogant… but why would it be so that one way to find a solution would be so much more capable than?-”
“Ay, that is not for us to know,” the voice replied. "It is for us to just accept that things are the way they are."
At this, Heimerdinger looked right back at the boards, a new will re-surging back into him. “NO! I will not let that be an acceptable answer! The foundation of science is that there is always an answer to everything; chance cannot be the answer here!”
“But you’ve already given up on finding an answer.”
“No… that’s what you hope for it to be. Now, there has to be a way… but how?-”
Then it came to him – the flash of insight, the moment of the elixir of brilliance – it as if it were almost a miracle. The wrenches in his head gave off a bolt of lightning between the two, as if to signify that the realization came to him. As if on cue, he began going through the revealed pathway of numbers in his mind, looking for their locations on the board.
“…8-4-9-4…”
“…6-3-7…”
And the beginning of the solution finally came to him. “…9-1-4-0-3-4.”
“…that’s it. 9-1-4-0-3-4.” He walked up to the board where the numbers were, and putting his fingers to point out the numbers. “91-26-35. There it is. The solution.”
“Now, now, Inventor, how could you just go-” The voice in his mind began to protest, but Heimerdinger cut him off.
“It’s simple, really! The assumption you gave me to start it all off was incorrect.”
“That’s impossible! Otherwise the-”
“No, it is incorrect. You have the assumption that the time it takes to determine whether the problem has a solution is the same as finding the solution itself. Not that it is not true: it’s just that it hasn’t been proven yet.”
“And there… lies the flaw. Assuming something that shouldn’t be.”
“And why is that?” The voice shot back.
“Because that is the one thing that makes science more capable than magic: magic is used without a definitive capability. Science always knows its limits. And that, my friend, is why my solution – 9-1-4-0-3-4 – is correct.”
“How does it feel, exposing your mind?” The voice then spoke.
He blinked, but before he could reply, the walls had seemingly vanished, the giant space of white nowhere to be found. When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the institute.
However, Heimerdinger was still smiling, as wide as ever.
“You never exposed my mind, sir: that’s what you think you’ve done. All you did was learn how to be out-done by the power of scientific knowledge.”
The voice seemed to give off a grunt, as if frustrated at its inability to be able to shake Heimerdinger's confidence in the end.
"Why do you want to join the League, Inventor?"
"For a similar reason: to show that scientific knowledge is far more practical than you think," Heimerdinger replied, the smile on his face growing wider.
With that, he looked behind his back one last time to see he really was where he was, and satisfied to see the same marble doors that led into the reflection chamber, he turned forward, and confidently strode into the league.
Science was on the march.
And it was time to show its true potential.
