Celebrity Interview - 2 The Librarian

[bonanova]

Continuing the astoundingly brief CI series: See CI-1

Good evening Mr. B. What's the good word?
Thanks for inviting me. Here it is: 1,777,777

Excuse me, are you well ...
Ordered? Indeed. One more thing: the counting numbers are finite.

Really?
No.

Time for another question?
Sorry, 23 skidoo!
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_{Vidi, vici, veni.}

[bonanova]

"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution."
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[jbvntx]

Is Mr B. by chance... G. G. Berry?

of the Berry paradox fame?
_________________
jbv

[bonanova]

Indeed. Translate the rest?
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[jbvntx]

I'm not sure I have it all. What I know is that ...


Berry's Paradox is that the phrase "the smallest possible integer not definable in under eleven words" is a paradox. There are integers that take more than eleven words to define, and so there must be a smallest one (well ordered principle, buried in your interview). But the phrase above only has ten words. So it's a paradox.

1,777,777 is the lowest number that takes at least 25 syllables to pronounce (I guess that must count the "and's").

The link to Bertrand Russell (your quote hint) is that he published Berry's paradox.

I've no clue what 23-skidoo references. Unless it's the number of syllables to pronounce 1,777,777 without the "and's". Or a reference to the time period when Bertrand Russell and G.G. Berry were kicking about.

[/spoiler]
_________________
jbv

[L'lanmal]

Ah, I was thinking letters, and couldn't figure out why not 1,373,373. Syllables should work.
(What "and"s? There should only be an "and" if there is a decimal point or fraction.)

[Zag]

[bonanova]

Nice. Have we covered the finite counting numbers part?
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[L'lanmal]

I think it was covered with:

[bonanova]

OK. I sometimes get things only on the 3rd or 4th reading and I appreciate people's forbearance on that. That's probably exactly equivalent to how I thought it through as I wrote the conversation, namely, that if "the smallest number that cannot be defined using fewer than 23 syllables" isn't 1,777,777 - or by extension any definable number, then that set has no smallest member, and by WOP must be empty. That leaves only the counting numbers that CAN be defined by fewer than 23 syllables - a finite set. Really? No - it's only a paradox.

This isn't the best puzzle I've ever written, but I enjoyed writing it, hoping it wasn't impossibly obscure. But I think that's impossible, in this forum.

I wonder whether the Russell quote was necessary...
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