It'll get there eventually

February 1, 2016 12:22 PM

Every Peano number.
posted by kenko (19 comments total)

This Succs.
posted by uosuaq at 12:29 PM on February 1, 2016 [5 favorites]

From Mathworld, some context: “Peano’s axioms”, “Peano Arithmetic”

From HaskellWiki, some context for the background: “Peano numbers”
posted by Going To Maine at 12:29 PM on February 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the context, but is it numberwang?
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:35 PM on February 1, 2016 [9 favorites]

I really have to disagree. The number of resources in the universe is enormous, but finite. That thread consumes resources. Eventually, the thread will either expire from having consumed too many resources, or it will be terminated for some other reason (for example, the heat death of the universe -- or the caprice of its owner). At the moment when it terminates, it will not still not have generated every Peano number.
posted by ubiquity at 12:36 PM on February 1, 2016 [7 favorites]

Hey, they forgot 5.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:42 PM on February 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Every Peano Palin Comcast.
posted by boo_radley at 12:55 PM on February 1, 2016

ubiquity: the calculation method used is resumable given only the twitter api. The thread concerns of their processor are no concern, in fact, if they wanted, they could spin up a new server for each number, not to mention threads. The limits are: twitter providing an api, and the existence of a computer that can use that api.
posted by idiopath at 1:03 PM on February 1, 2016

I prefer Beano numbers.
posted by w0mbat at 1:05 PM on February 1, 2016

important information, from here:

Succ has type Peano -> Peano

Succ Peano
posted by Zerowensboring at 1:08 PM on February 1, 2016

Or perhaps ubiquity meant twitter thread and not processor thread...
posted by idiopath at 1:10 PM on February 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes(s(s(s(s(s(s(...
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 1:17 PM on February 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

> Thanks for the context, but is it numberwang?

Yes, eventually.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:33 PM on February 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

So Numbers. Succ Peano. Wow
posted by mhoye at 4:21 PM on February 1, 2016 [5 favorites]

The limits are: twitter providing an api, and the existence of a computer that can use that api.

Twitter, as it is now, only uses 64 bit IDs for tweets, 40-something of which are a timestamp. So in a mere hundred thousand years or so, tweets will start colliding, and this bot will stop working correctly.
posted by aubilenon at 4:21 PM on February 1, 2016

Tweet ids could be recycled so that new ones only collide with very old ones. If you refer to some high Peano number by its tweet id, and then later the chain of replies no longer makes it all the way back to Zero, you are still referring to the same number.
posted by Phssthpok at 7:05 PM on February 1, 2016

But if you can only have 2^64 tweets about Peano numbers, you don't get all of them. OTOH, if all of the tweets are only Peano numbers, then that also means Twitter has finally solved its abuse problem, which I guess is an okay trade-off.
posted by aubilenon at 11:14 PM on February 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

I read that as "every Keanu number" and I was like "whoa!"
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:24 AM on February 2, 2016

Every 16-bit Sample From 24 Hours of NCC-1701-D Engine Noise
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:11 AM on February 2, 2016

But if you can only have 2^64 tweets about Peano numbers, you don't get all of them.

I think the more fundamental issue is that the very idea of "all Peano numbers" doesn't make very much sense.
posted by kenko at 11:01 AM on February 2, 2016