Some interesting bits from the article:
Anon is credited as the first author in the paper
Computers are able to calculate superpermutations for n = 4 and n = 5 but not for anything beyond that.
Since the series in question has 14 episodes, it would take 93,884,313,611 episodes to see all possible combinations. Or roughly 4 million years of non-stop viewing.
Is this number the exact result or a lower bound ?
Lower. It caught their attention because a science fiction author had come up with upper bound, which the article notes was also bizarre.
Houston had just learned that Australian science fiction author Greg Egan had found a new maximum length for the shortest superpermutations
But one person can only see one order. Unless you erase your memory
You can watch it again in a different order.
This is mostly about minimizing the number of viewings. So for a 3 episode series you can get order ABC and order BCA in 4 viewings instead of 6 by watching in order ABCA.
Get started anon!
I hate how every article written about it seemed hell bent into trying to make it look like it was some random weeb who channeled his love for anime to come up with a proof when most people in that thread were mathematicians who knew exactly what they were trying to prove. The board is literally called Science & Math. Fucking journalists, man.
mathematicians who knew exactly what they were trying to prove.
*weeb mathematicians who knew exactly what they were trying to prove and channelled their love for Haruhi to come up with a proof
Well, yeah, it’s 4chan, that’s a given. What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t some Good Will Hunting situation. It was competent people doing what they do for a living.
“The hacker named 4chan”
Additional context for the uninitiated: the series “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” was aired out of sequence intentionally, which is to say that the episide order is not the chronological order of events. The show is a masterclass of storytelling, presenting just enough information for the viewer to follow the episode’s plot while leaving you constantly guessing and inferring information about the series as a whole, since you learn plot details at a different pace than the protagonist. The show never tells you the episode’s chronological place, but it can be determined through observation of details such as season, references to other events, etc.
The reason this discussion started is because people began recommending others to watch the series in chronological order, and other orders were also popularized. So Anon seems to have been seeking a method to list all possible orders as a logical conclusion of the practice.
Highly recommended for even non-anime fans, it’s a great sci-fi comedy/drama/mystery. I personally recommend the original airing order.
