Truth or consequences

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "davewitley" <dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:
> 
> Kneasy wrote:
> 
> > Langford (of whom I've written before) describes the 
> mathematicians 
> > version which he and his friends developed (as below) over many 
> > beer-soaked sessions.
> > At 3 or multiples say "Oink"
> >      5 or multiples say "Fizz"
> >      7 or multiples say "Buzz"
> >      11 or multiples say "Burp"
> > fairly straightforward, so they decided to liven it up and added:
> > "Clang" for each prime number
> > "Pow" for perfect squares
> > "Zap" for powers of two
> > 
> > Thus 1, 2, 3, 4 would be expressed as "Clang Pow", "Clang Zap", 
> > "Oink Clang", "Pow Zap".
> 
> Error.  1 is "Pow zap".
> 
> > It's claimed that the first number to be expressed as numerals is 
> 26, 
> > though I've never  checked it myself.
> 
> Yes, that is correct.
> 
> > (There also exists Cantorian Fizz Buzz, played with real numbers 
> between
> > 0 and 1 with special grunts for transcendentals.) 
> > These are not normal people.
> 
> And your point is...?
> 
> David, fluffy mathematician


Oh, dear.
Fortunately it was made clear that after much discussion (a euphemism 
for "You're wrong! You're cheating! Admit it!") it was decided that 2 to the 
power 0 might equal 1 but it would be treated as a special case and didn't
count for the purposes of the game. (Otherwise 1 would have been 
"Clang Pow Zap". As an added complication the order of the words used for
each number also mattered. Brain pain looms.)

Nice to have confirmation of '26' being the first number to be in plain,
though - although I wouldn't be surprised if most of the participants
hadn't succumbed to penalty pints long before that point was reached.
I know I would have done.

My point?
Beware of mathematicians playing alcoholic games.

Kneasy