2023/01/31 by Lucy Martinez, Doron Zeilberger, Martinez, Lucy +1
Computer Science · Mathematics · #Combinatorics (math.CO) #Computability, Logic, AI Algorithms #FOS: Mathematics #History and Theory of Mathematics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2302.00143
openalex publication_date 2023/01/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Noga Alon and Yaakov Malinovsky recently studied the following game: you start at 0, and keep rolling a fair standard die, and add the outcomes until the sum happens to be prime. We generalize this in several ways, illustrating the power of symbolic, rather than merely numeric, computation. We conclude with polemics why the beautiful rigorous error estimate of Alon and Malinovsky is only of theoretical interest, explaining why we were content, in our numerous extensions, with non-rigorous, but practically-certain, estimates.