alt Hacker NewsIf you plot the positive integers two-dimensionally in a square spiral arrangement, eg.
5 4 3
6 1 2
7 8 9
If you plot the positive integers two-dimensionally in a square spiral arrangement, eg.
5 4 3
6 1 2
7 8 9
I was curious why/how someone would even think about arranging numbers in a spiral. The origin story is funny:
> According to Martin Gardner, Ulam discovered the spiral in 1963 while doodling during the presentation of "a long and very boring paper" at a scientific meeting. These hand calculations amounted to "a few hundred points". Shortly afterwards, Ulam and collaborators used MANIAC II at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to extend the calculation to about 100,000 points.