Impatient with my bumbling attempts to CAD a puzzle design with Mathematica, Neil fired up a copy of MuPad (a gift from Julian, who won two copies in a contest). NB: "Barf! It can't even do sum(cos(9/(PI*n + sqrt(PI^2*n^2 - 9))/n^2, n=0..infinity)" rwg: "Very funny. That's my lifetime abstrusest identity." NB: "Well, Mathematica can do it." rwg: "And I am the Virgin Mary." NB: Sum[Cos[9/(\[Pi]*n + Sqrt[\[Pi]^2*n^2 - 9])]/n^2, {n, \[Infinity]}] Mma: -Pi^2/(12 E^3) rwg (swallowing expletives): "Change something. Change the 9s." (The generalization is Sum[Cos[Sqrt[\[Pi]^2*n^2 + b^2]]*(-1)^n/n^2, {n, \[Infinity]}] == \[Pi]^2/4*(Sin[b]/b - Cos[b]/3) See http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.ijm/1255987146<http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.ijm/1255987146> ) Mma: <FAIL> rwg&NB: "FEH!" Earlier, watching him blurt a particularly brutish code fragment (and inwardly jealous of his fluency) rwg: "If Knuth were dead, he'd be spinning in his grave." NB: "Algorithms are for people who don't know how to buy RAM." Don't believe him. He has an algorithm that reduces to a few hours his 48day 4x4 puzzle search. (http://nbickford.wordpress.com/) --rwg Re: Fastest computer: Whatever happened to GaAs? DanA: Freudian slip? Her name is Angela Saini. No, just geriatric eyesight. But if the antiBayesian (frequentist?) judge left much wiggle room, what are all those professors yelling about?