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Thread: A Riddle

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    Troll in the Playground
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    Default A Riddle

    A man walks into a university library and finds seven books piled on a desk:
    • 1 quantum chemistry textbook
    • 2 differential equations textbooks
    • 1 book on economic indicators
    • 1 book entitled "Modern Portfolio Theory and Investment Analysis"
    • 2 books on polymer engineering (one focusing on "ESR methods")



    What was being researched here?

    Go nuts.

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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: A Riddle

    Sounds either like someone starting a company or someone investing in (medical?) plastics. Could be someone studying growth processes as well.
    Last edited by NichG; 2017-12-18 at 07:13 PM.

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    Default Re: A Riddle

    Library sciences intro.
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    Nothing, somebody just wanted to look really busy while they did something they didn't want people to see.
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    Default Re: A Riddle

    Quote Originally Posted by Grinner View Post
    A man walks into a university library and finds seven books piled on a desk:
    • 1 quantum chemistry textbook
    • 2 differential equations textbooks
    • 1 book on economic indicators
    • 1 book entitled "Modern Portfolio Theory and Investment Analysis"
    • 2 books on polymer engineering (one focusing on "ESR methods")



    What was being researched here?

    Go nuts.
    Someone pitching a new industrial product. A new synthetic oil or rubber for industrial machinery.
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    Default Re: A Riddle

    Quote Originally Posted by Grinner View Post
    A man walks into a university library and finds seven books piled on a desk:
    • 1 quantum chemistry textbook
    • 2 differential equations textbooks
    • 1 book on economic indicators
    • 1 book entitled "Modern Portfolio Theory and Investment Analysis"
    • 2 books on polymer engineering (one focusing on "ESR methods")



    What was being researched here?

    Go nuts.
    Nothing was being researched here. A librarian was gathering up books that had been discarded throughout the library, put them down to go attend to some more urgent business, and has not yet returned to re-shelve them.

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    A psychologist is researching what people think when they see these books.

    An evil genius is learning how to use quantum polymers to take over the stock market.

    All the best compute-devices for predicting economies need plastic. (something something Pratchett)

    How can I replace the human brain. Hmm, I can use polymers for the brain matter, and then throw the craziest, most complicated and most random equations at the brain until it learns to cope. Bingo, brain 2.0

    That's not a man, that's an alien in a plastic body!

    Modern techniques for summoning the economist in yellow.

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    Well, the man who walks into the library is researching the stack of books, apparently, so that's what's being researched.

    All the actual researchers are off somewhere googling.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lvl 2 Expert View Post
    Well, the man who walks into the library is researching the stack of books, apparently, so that's what's being researched.

    All the actual researchers are off somewhere googling.
    Exactly. The only research described is "what books are left on the table".

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lvl 2 Expert View Post
    Well, the man who walks into the library is researching the stack of books, apparently, so that's what's being researched.

    All the actual researchers are off somewhere googling.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    Exactly. The only research described is "what books are left on the table".
    The question is, "what was bring researched?" Emphasis mine. It clearly denotes the research that the books were involved in, not the man who found the books.
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    NinjaGuy

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    Clearly, someone just binge-watched "Travelers" on Netflix...


    ... then realized they actually enjoyed differential equations, and grabbed a second book.

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    HalflingPirate

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    I not only know what was being researched, I know who did it:

    It was Pres.Trump's hairdresser researching hair care products.

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    Maybe it's a GM preparing a science fiction game.
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    Another possibility is that the pile was assembled by more than one person - maybe two people were sharing a table, both left at the same time temporarily (synchronized breaks for two people studying together), and they just stacked their books into one pile.

    The obvious separation here is one person using the quantum chemistry and both polymer engineering books, the other person using the two economics books, and both having a differential equations book. The first person could be doing all sorts of studying, with trying to figure out how exactly MALDI works being an obvious candidate. The second person might be building an economic model for investing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Grinner View Post
    A man walks into a university library and finds seven books piled on a desk:
    • 1 quantum chemistry textbook
    • 2 differential equations textbooks
    • 1 book on economic indicators
    • 1 book entitled "Modern Portfolio Theory and Investment Analysis"
    • 2 books on polymer engineering (one focusing on "ESR methods")



    What was being researched here?

    Go nuts.
    Quantum chemistry, differential equations, economic indicators, modern portfolio theory and investment analysis, general polymer engineering, and ESR methods in particular. The riddle doesn't ask about why these things were being researched, just what they are.
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    Default Re: A Riddle

    I think the thing being investigated is this random riddle like piece of text Grinner's PM ad-libbed in a dungeon. The full text is in the first post and there is no intended solution.
    Last edited by Lvl 2 Expert; 2018-02-08 at 01:05 AM.

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    HalflingPirate

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    Default Re: A Riddle

    What is being researched is the viability of marketing a 3D printing system.

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    Somebody just watched "The Graduate" and decided that even fifty years later, the word still is "plastics".

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    Textbook companies
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    Default Re: A Riddle

    Quote Originally Posted by Grinner View Post
    A man walks into a university library and finds seven books piled on a desk:
    • 1 quantum chemistry textbook
    • 2 differential equations textbooks
    • 1 book on economic indicators
    • 1 book entitled "Modern Portfolio Theory and Investment Analysis"
    • 2 books on polymer engineering (one focusing on "ESR methods")



    What was being researched here?

    Go nuts.
    So is there an actual solution to this riddle? Or did you just stumble across a stack of books and get curious?

    This being a riddle, the correct answer is probably something like A but not B, and B but not A. Or headline for the story about the wanted halfling psychic: Small Medium at Large
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    Clearly, someone wants to develop an alternative to Hari Seldon's psychohistory. Except, instead of using human behavior to create a predictive model of the future, he's using mathematics, physics, and an understanding of markets and chemistry, to create a predictive model of...

    Plastics.

    You heard me. Plastics. He knows where the money is. Or will be. Or he suspects it.

    We all know it. We know the future is in plastics. We know it because of every sci-fi movie or novel that uses plastics for ship construction, for bandages, for clothing, for paper. We knew it in 1967, when The Graduate told us "There's a great future in plastics. Think about it."

    Think about it.

    This guy is trying to create a predictive model of the plastics market. He's going to use math and physics to create a near-perfect probabilistic model, shaped by the very factors and forces of reality, which he will apply to the market and chemistry in order to determine the exact and idealized form of the future of plastics. And he will invest in that future. In futures, even.

    This person is a genius whom we should all emulate.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grinner View Post
    A man walks into a university library and finds seven books piled on a desk:
    "quantum chemistry" and "polymer engineering" obviously make sense together.
    "economic indicators" and "investment analysis" obviously make sense together.
    "differential equations" would totally make sense with either set of books.

    It's a bit of a stretch to try to link the chemical engineering and economic analysis books however. Even if someone were interested in the economics of manufacturing, it's hard to see how the same person would need to dig quite so deep into both the fundamental engineering and heavy financial analysis sides of it. That kind of financial analysis is usually people trying to make profits across entire markets, and the techniques don't generally change based on drilling down to detailed manufacturing processes of individual products.

    Financial analysts do use a lot of math, and they often have a physics background and create financial models that mimic those developed to describe physical processes. However, diving deep into chemistry and engineering rather than physics for economic models would be highly unusual and probably not super helpful.

    Is this really a riddle, or just a weird pile of books that you saw? The obvious thing would be someone studying for two different classes and just put the books together. Or two different people studying and someone gathered the books up.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Red Fel View Post
    We all know it. We know the future is in plastics. We know it because of every sci-fi movie or novel that uses plastics for ship construction, for bandages, for clothing, for paper.
    Except for the ones where everything is chrome
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