Re: [Maxima-discuss] Why does 'solve' not work here?

[Leo B. <l_b...@us...>]

>
>   Actually there is an analogous question I have to you:
>   There is a grad student wanting to joint a project of your's. So you
>   tell the student that you have one piece of bread and that you take
>   another piece of bread and that you place it on top of the first one.
>   Now you ask the student: how many pieces of bread do I have on the
>   stack? The student answers: I cannot solve this.
>
>   Would you rely on this student to do part of your actual research?

Absolutely. The problem you pose is not soluble with the stated
information. The student can only deduce a lower bound on the number
of slices of bread. Was that first piece of bread stacked on top of
another? You don't say.

A mediocre student would say 2, a good one would say there is not
enough information.

Leo