Mastodawn

Jan Wildeboer 😷

Jan 19, 2020

Had to verify. And yes. Kernighan and Ritchie really did this. TIL :)

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John Wilson Nov 8, 2022

@jwildeboer The 1st edition of the Java Language specification is full of this sort of thing
Ramanujan, Srinivasa, 224
On page 224 is an example with
class Super { static int taxi = 1729; }

It all disappeared in the 2nd edition

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clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

I remember once going to see him [Ramanujan] when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi-cab No. 1729, and remarked that the number seemed to be rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavourable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_…

@tug TIL! Thanks!

@jwildeboer

Taxicab number - Wikipedia