On Thu, 7 Jul 2005, Tim Blechmann wrote:
iirc it took more than 500 years after the fibonacci numbers has been defined to find a direct (non-recursive way) to compute elements
Fibonacci hasn't defined the Fibonacci numbers. He imported them from the Arabs, who already knew about them and their appearance in biological patterns; but I think I recall that they actually had learned that from some other people. I think you can date it back to year 800 or before.
But then, there weren't people actually looking for a "non-recursive way" for 500 years in a row non-stop. It's not like DeepThought taking 7500000 years to answer "42" you know. ;-)
Plus, which definition of integer multiplication do you use that doesn't use recursion at all? :-P
... how long took it to prove fermat's last theorem?
350 years. (How is this related to backslashes anyway?)
maybe there is a superior design, that will be thought of in 30 or 300 years ... still, i'd prefer a non-optimal solution until then ...
How long did it take to invent Object-Oriented COBOL ?
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